Catharsis
by DropOfInk
Summary: This is a story about choices. A story about innocence, failure, and broken faith. A story about hope, bitter wisdom, and the peace that we all must make with our past. Canon TLA. T for language.
1. Intro

Hi all! My name is already known to the whole internet since that's the only username that wasn't taken. Sigh.

Anyway, I finally worked up the guts to have people tear into my writing. So please do so! The only thing worse to a new writer than getting a review is not getting one. Yes, ours is a strange profession.

The concept here is: everyone's on the boat after Jupiter Lighthouse, and everyone's not quite ready to be friends yet. This was one of the moments when TLA really revealed its near-complete lack of character development, IMHO. Isaac and co. have been chasing these dudes for what, a year or so? And then they get to Contigo, four minutes of Kraden babbling like a senile old man, and they're all like "Huh, okay cool we're buddies again now." Seriously.

If I owned Golden Sun, it'd be so plot-heavy you still wouldn't have finished it. So obviously that didn't happen.

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><p>Catharsis<br>Intro

_My brother?_  
><em>He left us. <em>  
><em>- Jenna <em>

Deep beneath the forbidding cliffsides of the coast of Hesperia, shadowed by tall trees and whipped by a strong wind, the ocean crashed and dove. Spray flew as water met grey rock. High overhead the sun rode, passed by flying rags of cloud. A lone ship plowed north. At its pointed nose, a certain distressed Mercury Adept watched the anger of Nature. Mia leaned her weight more fully on crossed arms supported by a wooden rail and sighed. She needed this moment, needed to drown her thoughts in the chaos around her.

Much had happened, and most of it she knew would take a while for her to accept. It had all started when they got on this ship. Actually, it had started much earlier than that. The ship rocked and creaked as crying gulls wheeled overhead. It wasn't a bad ship, all things considered. No, definitely not the ship's fault, but Mia would rather have been on any two-foot-square on the whole surface of Weyard at that moment. She was finding it quite hard to get any of the thinking she desperately needed done while expecting the fight of the century to erupt at any second beneath her feet.

She remembered quite well the first time she had been Outside. She had been working diligently in the small, snowy town of Imil in winter, bustling about her daily round of errands. Another call had come for her. It was completely indistinguishable from all the others that fateful day. Just a normal old person having a normal reaction to the utterly normal amounts of snow and cold in that season. But she had walked in the door, preparing her medical kit, and seen what looked like apparitions standing about, like warriors from the old legends. A tall, sunburnt boy with blond hair, a huge, solid young fighter painted in broad strokes of red, and a small, delicate, frail child with haunting features, all of whom had the same burning, fathomless gaze in their eyes. It unnerved and fascinated her at the same time. They were like ghosts, but flesh and bone. Like Adepts of the epic sagas her ancestors told, but real.

She went through the motions of caring for the sick person in the hut, and she hoped, thinking back, that she had done no harm, and maybe possibly some good. She didn't know at the time. Her mind was completely absorbed by those mysterious people. While climbing the Mercury Lighthouse, she had known from the start that she wanted to join them. There was something about them that posed an irresistible attraction to her, that tugged on the deepest parts of her being. She just had to go with them, to find out what it was that filled their eyes with fire.

Throughout the long, arduous trek across Middle Weyard, crisscrossing Angara far too many times for her taste, she had learned their story. The tragic and bitter tale of betrayal, anger, and revenge that consumed Isaac and Garet, and Ivan to a lesser extent. The two from Vale were hurt, confused, and their anger at their situation focused itself on their quarry, the people who had ruptured their lives, and especially the one, the dark one, who had torn at their hearts and left them only questions with no answers.

She had always been an empathetic, emotional person, and she felt for those two, who brought themselves to harsh tears each time they mentioned through clenched teeth the name of the friend and hero who had come back from the dead - a traitor. Atop the Venus Lighthouse was where she saw him for the first time. And it was there she was filled with a deep, abiding fear. She was afraid of that man, the one who should have been a boy still but whose dark features were revealed, as he pulled off his mask, to be carved with deep lines of hate, sorrow, and care. His brown eyes, behind the blowing screen of his hair, seemed almost to hold a deep regret at this meeting, but as she watched, they hardened into cold, impenetrable glass. It was at that moment that she knew to be afraid, for she could see that this boy was capable of utterly anything. He was alien, removed. He had cut himself loose from the comfortable, friendly world in which she lived. There was nothing left in his soul at all. He was merely an empty shell.

Mia knew indifference, the clinical detachment from the pain that she could suffer, from the eyes of the three facing her, for the first time in her sheltered life, and she was afraid. But at that moment, in a small puddle of water lying slickly on the aerie floor, she caught her own reflection, and realized how much they had all changed, what a useless sad waste of childhood this whole chase was. Why couldn't the seal-breakers have left well enough alone? After the fighting was over, a brief and yet endless blur of cries, moans, and the vicious sound of unleashed Psynergy hitting flesh and stone, she saw something else. She saw the shell, the frozen ruins of a person, come back to life, to motion and vivid animation, as he reached for his friend. In that split-second she realized the other things he was capable of. Almost before she could think her sympathy went out to him. She wanted him to succeed, and she watched in disbelief as he failed. Everyone, friend and foe alike, turned at the cry to see a small, defenseless-looking girl slip and fall off the edge. It was a primal scream, a shattered, choking cry of rage and disbelief, hung suspended in the thin air atop the remembered, with numbed horror, how high up they were, how far from the ground. Her mind showed her what would happen when the girl impacted, and her sensitive, delicate nature recoiled from the vision. She wanted to turn away but couldn't.

And then he dived. He drew himself up, looked to the sky as though pleading for help, took one or two steps, and disappeared off the edge of Venus Lighthouse. No one could move, no one could say a word. Through the many long days ahead, Mia had more than enough time to reflect on what she had seen. She realized that Felix's senseless act of bravery had raised more questions, not answered them. Was he bad? If so, why did he jump to save that girl? Was he good? If so, why was he trying to directly bring about the end of the world? Why had he ruined the lives of her friends? With time, her emotions about the boy began to fade, her impressions formed atop the Venus aerie began to recede, but her curiosity remained. She often had no time to think, in the midst of healing, fighting, sleeping, traveling, but in the odd spare moment she found her thoughts returning to him.

Then came another day, another life-changing moment, another bizarre shift in perception in a world where nothing seemed to make sense anymore. She'd suddenly found herself kneeling on the edge of a precipice, Garet's shocked face hanging and swaying just out of her reach, and the limitless void falling away with sickening energy beneath him. With the clinical part of her mind she noted the tilt of his useless arm, made a quick assessment of the bones and ligaments that had to be torn to make it flop that way. With the battle-hardened heroine in her, she did her best to lift his weight up and cursed her fragility and weakness. The girlish part of her hid in fright, amazed at the craziness of this moment, of the utter fearlessness she had not known she could display. The clash of arms, shouts of surprise, reached her, but she couldn't take the time to look up or Garet might fall. She tried once to summon enough energy to begin healing, found that her mind was too shocked, too drained.

He shifted, trying to ease his weight partly onto the ledge and release some of the tension from his one good arm. He could be hanging for a while, from the sound of things above. He waited until she looked into his face again and cracked, "Guess the all-powerful ancient race didn't believe in safety, huh? People are always falling off these stupid things." She laughed, a small sound in the back of her throat. Then came running footsteps, surprised shouts, more noise from up above. She craned her neck, trying to make out what was going on. A loud argument began, continued for a short time, and then abruptly broke off. Silence fell. Suddenly a head popped into view over the edge of the lighthouse above her. It was that girl. Mia felt a quick rush of happiness that she survived; seeing her alive cleared a little corner of the cloud of doubt and sorrow in her soul that Mia had forgotten was there. She spoke quickly, in a clear, eager voice.

"Hang on, we'll get you up from there."

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><p>Yeah, it really sucked, but I know you hate it just enough to leave a review, right?<p> 


	2. Encounter

This one's coming out a little quicker because I realized in retrospect that absolutely nothing related to the plot happened in the intro, and we need to get this ball rolling. Future updates will come about every week. Close to that.

A huuge shout out to both **fegs2fan **and **Golden-Black Dragon **for reviews. Seriously, you guys rock. Especially fegs2fan - I was dancing in agony, waiting for the first feedback from the outside world on any of my writing, and I get her (I think it's a she) review literally an hour after I post the first chapter. I expected suspense for at least a day, so that was great. Getting a positive review? Icing on the cake.

Golden-Black Dragon is from Ireland. That makes you instantly awesome.

One last thing - I clicked on the regular link to my story out of curiosity and found it was a WALL O' TEXT - I'm wincing in embarrassment right now, I can tell you. Props to any of the people who actually waded through that, and this one's hopefully formatted to be easier on the eyes. My bad. It's still thick, but I broke up the longer pieces a little bit.

I own nothing -

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><p>Catharsis<p>

Encounter

_What is it now? You're worried about hurting any innocents?  
>- Kraden<em>

_Once, they were pure of heart... Hroom... Those gems have brought  
>a great evil to the world...<br>- Tret_

As soon as she could stand and look about her she noticed the strange split in the group surrounding her. Three were known to her. Four were not: the girl, another girl with red hair who Mia decided must be the Jenna Isaac kept talking about, an old scholar, and a strange man with blue hair and an air of agelessness. He was both wisely ancient and mischievously young, and he ran off up the stairs before Mia could get a good look at him. But the others, standing about, were most definitely not one, even though they looked like a group.

There was a strong rift between the two and she was sad because she understood why. Division, misunderstanding, and bitterness seemed to swirl like poisonous fog around the figure of Felix. She set to healing her injured friend, barely noticing as first one and then another of Felix's friends ran off somewhere. Standing upright, her task complete, she was hurried up to the top of the lighthouse, where she witnessed yet another betrayal, yet another blood-soaked act of anarchy. Felix was standing above the bodies of Karst and Agatio, the two they had been chasing for so long. She wanted to scream, because no one else understood, no one else seemed to see how the gods punished those who broke their laws.

Then came the twist. The revelation that set off the end of the world for Mia. She could do nothing but stare as the words fell, one by one, into the silence. She had come against her will to this house, the little close house in Contigo. She felt that only more blood would come of it, and this was what had happened. They were wrong, had been wrong all along, and Felix was in the right, Felix was not evil after all. It made her doubt her sanity. It made her doubt the essential fabric of the world she lived in. The walls of the house closed in on her, the staring eyes bored through her. Her breath came fast and tight. Who was good and who was evil, after all? Was Isaac evil? Was she? And Felix was the good guy, the spotless hero?

She screamed, pushed the water before her and felt the weight of the waves respond to her call. It felt good to cut loose like this, to delve into such a body of her element and force it to her will. Water flew high in a solid mass, slammed down into the ocean with a colossal shock, flew up again. She scarcely noticed as the boat began to rock harder and the creaking of the ship took on an alarming tone. She didn't notice the cabin door flying open behind her at all, and she was startled into awareness of herself only by the worried voice in her ear.

"Is everything okay?"

She spun around.

"You-you scared me!"

Piers flinched. He'd snuck up on her impressively well, even in her preoccupied state. He was strange even by her newly lax standards – Proxians were no average humans. He was clean-shaven and fastidious about personal appearance but wore his hair even longer than Felix and kept a battered blue greatcoat as his sole outer was polite and gentlemanly to a fault but had chosen the sea as a way of life and was nearly as outwardly tough as Felix, again.

Strangest of all, he was both old and young. There was no fit way to describe it. He seemed to be about as old as she, with smooth skin and clear, bright eyes. And yet at certain times he appeared unmistakably old, as ancient as the sea he loved. In his manners and mannerisms, he betrayed at times the distinct ponderous thoughtfulness, the slow gait of walk and speech of an old man. It was curious and not a little unsettling. Isaac had tried to find this man deep in the Eastern Sea, but Felix had picked him up first. Strange, how they all had run together in the end.

"Sorry. I'm just always on edge about this ship. Loud noises, that sort of thing."

"You might be attacked?" She thought back to an incident she remembered all too well.

"Can't say it hasn't happened. A lot. In fact pretty much every day," Piers smiled grimly. Then a thought occurred to him. "Sounds like you've had experience with that too?"

"Um, yeah, actually. A huge sea monster-" she stumbled to a halt, confused by the sudden predatory look in Piers' eye.

"Go on! What was it?" He became aware of his own aggression, rubbed an ear shamefacedly. "Sorry. I'm professionally interested. Sailors love this kind of thing." She laughed, relieved.

"I see. Well, I won't be able to tell you much about it, I'm afraid. It was in the Karagol Sea."

He leaned in closer.

"You don't say. I've heard rumors of such a thing, and of course I saw it on Lunpa's maps. There's really an inland sea?"

"Salt water and all," she said, wondering who Lunpa was. She hated ending up lost in conversations like this.

"Amazing! I'll have to see it sometime. But continue."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "You should really ask one of the others, I can't do this any justice. It was a fierce and terrible creature with long slick arms and a beak like a bird's. It was bigger than this ship, and it-"

"Bigger than the ship! No way!" She stopped again. "Listen, I'm terribly sorry. This is the way you tell a yarn to a sailor. He's expected to interrupt you at particular points so you get an opportunity to embellish and exaggerate. It's all part of the fun. I'll listen, I promise. I really am interested." He was; eager curiosity shone in every line of his oddly boyish face. The promise of a sea story had thawed him out considerably.

"Well, there's not much more. It attacked the ship several times and eventually drove us off course. We landed on an island and had to repair the ship before we could continue. It was one of the scariest things I've ever faced." She shuddered.

"You fought it?" Piers exclaimed, impressed.

"No, no..." she moved quickly to head him off. "I'm just a healer. Nothing more. The others fought it, I patched them up later. You should ask them about it."

"All right, I guess I will."

To keep his obvious disappointment off his mind, she asked,

"And how about you?"

Immediately Piers threw back his head with a dramatic flourish and fixed her with his finest storytelling stare. She smiled in spite of herself.

"There we were, deep in the blue Eastern Sea, five days from the nearest land. We were running out of food and water. We'd made a straight run from Alhafra and gotten caught in the Lemurian fog the day before. We spent that whole day bumping from rock to rock in the fog, caught in whirlpools, twisting, turning, scraping just by. I swear I rubbed off paint on both sides squeezing through a gap. Felix saved us all with that poem of his –we'd have been lost forever without him. Anyway, suddenly, a huge whirlpool opens up before us and – damn it."

A bird had landed on the railing. She was totally confused by Piers' surreal storytelling – she'd continued smiling and nodding, not about to interrupt the only friendly gesture any of the strangers on this ship had made to date, but she really had no idea what he was talking about. Now this bird had thrown him completely. She would have laughed if not for the deadly serious gaze Piers and the bird were sharing. It looked awfully dull to her – just a seagull, white wings folded, yellow beak and eyes tilted in curiosity. Unusually silent, maybe, but otherwise normal. But Piers was backing slowly, eyes locked in place, whispering from the corner of his mouth. One hand slid with infinite care towards the sword handle poking from his clothes.

"Ring the bell." What the...what bell? Bell? As she cast around helpless glances, another bird landed with fluttering wings, then another. Finally she spotted her goal, a small brass bell hanging from the cabin wall. Without warning the birds lifted into the air, flinging themselves onto Piers. The savagery of the attack took her breath away, and in shock and fear she raced the remaining distance to the bell and swung the striker sharply, once, twice. The clear tones rang out and died away.

Out on the open deck Piers was obscured by flying feathers and wings. A bright arc of light stung her eyes and a gull lay dying, its life running red into the rough boards. Piers had his sword out and swinging. Liquid light ran up and down the blade as it spun and flickered. Another dropped and bounced, wings splaying out as it skidded to a halt in a streak of crimson. The last attacker rolled to her feet with a clink, frozen solid. She looked up to see him regarding her with mild surprise.

"Were you planning on helping me?"

Before she could say anything the crash of a door and drum roll of pounding footsteps interrupted her. Felix raced out and skidded to a stop, sword in hand. She flinched.

"Okay?"

Piers nodded, inspecting a long pink scratch on his forearm.

"Yeah, we're fine. They were just birds."

Mia looked from one to the other.

"What – I don't understand. What's the bell for?"

"Some animals are tricky – gulls are one of them. Subtle differences in the color of feathers and feet are the only distinction between the ones that'll attack with claws and the ones that'll tear a festering hole in you with Psynergetic poison."

Felix nodded in agreement.

"Safest to ring the bell – better that someone lose a minute of their time than that someone else lose an eye or their life. There's always an ugly surprise around here."

He nodded to Piers and headed back, tucking a long, shining blade into its sheath. As soon as he'd left, Piers returned a questioning eye to Mia. She hung her head.

"Sorry. I've never been good at killing." She remembered when this had started. With the breaking of the Seal. One night in Imil, when she'd worked late and her vision swam before her, she could have sworn she saw a shimmering veil, like fiery blue snowflakes, rolling across the land toward her. She shook her head to clear it, looked out again from the low rise on the road across the bumpy, frozen marsh. Nothing. Convinced her eyes were playing tricks, she didn't speak of it to anyone; days later, the reports of attacks on travelers by strange rabid animals began rolling in. Piers took a guess at her thoughts.

"I know they're confused and crazed by the Psynergy ash they've eaten. They don't really mean it, but they can still hurt you enough to kill you."

She shook her head.

"I know, and I'm sorry. I've just never been good at fighting. I don't want to hurt anything."

Piers frowned.

"Except that it hurt me. See this... scratch... on my. Arm. Uh..." It was gone.

"Sorry. I fixed it." She didn't meet his gaze.

"...Oh. Well, my thanks. Still, understand that there's nothing you can do to fix this. It's not mercy to spare them, because they can't appreciate it and someone who trusts you could get hurt." He blew out a long breath.

"To be honest, when I started it bothered me too. But I'm over it now, because there's just nothing I can do. The ash isn't falling anymore; someday it'll be back to normal."

Mia looked up suddenly.

"Will it, Piers? It's still buried in the ground. It'll surface for years to come and poison everything it touches. Do the innocent deserve this? Breaking the seal was supposed to save the world, and this was the first thing it did."

Piers, surprised, stared at her from wide eyes.

"I...uh, never thought of it that way before."

She pressed on.

"Isn't that true? I believe that you really will stop the world wasting away, or whatever. You've convinced me of that. But maybe you'll just destroy it completely instead."

Piers stopped her abruptly.

"Don't think about that."

"Why not?" she pushed, recklessly.

"Because that's what Felix does to himself, every day, and you've seen him." Now it was her turn to be surprised and speechless. "You can easily get lost in a mire of yes and no, and you'll never escape."

"So what, then? What do I believe, Piers?"

"Trust him. He knows what he's doing. I don't know. I'm far older than he is, but events have proven me less wise than I had hoped."

She shook her head.

"Sorry, Piers. I'm not ready to make that leap yet. He's still my enemy for all either of us know."

"Still enemies? I don't know if I want to fight you now, or if I ever did. Do you really feel that way?"

"Who can tell?" She shrugged it off. Looking around, she noticed the sun was beginning a long, slow arc toward the water. Well, she'd finish her thinking later. Piers gathered together the fatality that was his customary attitude, hiding his previous friendliness behind its ragged cloak. A faint regret seeped into her soul, but what was there to do?

"I suppose I'll see you on the battlefield," Piers said. "Thanks for healing this."

"Sure."

He let her turn and go. There was nothing to say.

Just as she brought the door to the inside closed behind her, she heard Piers begin whistling tunelessly on deck. She turned in the half-light of the common room and watched the reddening sky through the gap left by the door, listening silently for a few seconds before shutting it softly and making her way to the stairs.

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><p>Blah, blah, blah. Lot of talking. This chapter originally had Piers finish his story, but I decided I didn't like it. This is one of the drawbacks of the character-driven method of writing - sometimes people just react in a way that you were not expecting and it changes the whole flow of the story. Dangit, Piers. So I rewrote it and threw in a brief ACTION SCENE, which hopefully makes up for that. I like this version better.<p>

About the fight - honestly? Fighting someone who not only can move as well as you can and swing a weapon at you but on top of that can manipulate the environment to his or her will? It'd be over in a heartbeat. Blink - you're dead. I tried to capture this idea I had of what would be the frenetic pace of Psynergetic combat. This is an easy fight as well, so it's over quick. Let me know if you felt this worked out or not.

Also, freakin' birds. The Western Sea palette-swaps of the seagull are suddenly ten times tougher and can spit poison at you, IIRC. Can't make it ten feet up the coast without jellyfish or something attacking you, especially near Loho.

Love it? Hate it? R&R please!


	3. Of Ships and Beacons

A day late already; sigh. Well, it's here and I'm adhering to a schedule of sorts, so on with the show. A weird bug in the file upload system, but it's all good now, hopefully.

Thanks to **fegs2fan **for the helpful advice and reviews. Props go as well to **Sun and Moon Entity, Golden-Black Dragon, **and** Kairikiani**. Thanks guys!

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><p>Catharsis<p>

Of Ships and Beacons

_Ah, well... I can't stay the same Alex you knew forever...  
>- Alex<em>

_So that Alex fellow left already, did he? He's such a rogue...  
>Is he running from something?<br>– Alhafran girl_

This ship was not nearly as claustrophobic as the vessel she had sailed on with Isaac and the others. Though without any prior nautical experience, Mia knew instinctively that the shell that held her was a work of craftsmanship of the highest caliber. Every detail, from the way the wooden joints were laid to the elegantly spacious design of the interior, spoke of a loving master's hand. At dusk, as now, cunningly hidden lights were mysteriously turned on in all the hallways. How it worked was far beyond her, but she remained fascinated. It was not safe to stay too long in the open, though, so she moved quickly to her room and shut the door behind her.

Piers had tried hard to bridge the gap since the terrible house in Contigo. He had provided a needed voice of reason, laying out the calm and logical proof of the wrenching truth. Kraden, of course, was familiar to both Isaac and Garet; they'd mentioned his name frequently, as his kidnapping was one of the many crimes Felix had to answer for to the village of Vale. They trusted his wisdom and experience as their teacher of happier days. Kraden and Jenna were still theirs; their only quarrel lay with Felix. Piers was a stranger to them, but his voice carried an authority born of long practice. Had it not been those two presenting the evidence, no one would have believed a word of it; that much she was sure of.

But the words held weight, they supported themselves in the void of anger that floated over that hated Oriental rug. Against her will they broke through to her and sunk in; she didn't want to believe it but it forced its own way in. The truth held a ring of conviction that no one could fake, and this was the heartbreaking truth. Afterwards, Ivan and his sister Hama had tried to share a moment of reunion, but neither really had their heart in it. Mia had pitied him; what should have been fulfilling was stripped of emotion. She remembered him confiding his hopes and dreams in her, remembered who was responsible for this destruction yet again. It was hard to feel any pity for the scarred man with long dark hair when he left such a trail in his wake. She had no say in the matter, though; it was all up to the leaders. Neither had stirred an inch, remaining fixed in place, fists clenched, eyes locked. And in this thick soup of mistrust and hatred Piers had cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Since it seems we will all be heading in the same direction for the present, allow me to offer the use of my ship, which is quite large enough to hold us all."

Isaac spoke without looking away from Felix.

"I seem to have no choice but to accept the theory that Kraden and you, sir, have put out, and by extension no choice but to accept the offer you give us. My thanks."

Whether he was grateful in any measurable way was not an issue Mia cared to explore at that moment.

Felix didn't speak.

The ship turned out to be big enough to hold them all, as well as a reasonably large number of their extended families and enough supplies for an army. It was a truly magnificent vessel seen from the sandy beach, where it towered over eight bare heads caressed by the breeze. Piers stirred, overplaying the role of gracious host to cover the tension they all could feel.

"Well, let's board, shall we?"

They might have to fight someday, but she was still grateful to him for the effort, and she sensed that the others were too, with the notable exception of Isaac, who merely glowered at everything. Felix, who still had not spoken a word, detached himself from the group on the deck and stayed above, nodding to Piers before the latter led them all down to their cabins. Presumably he readied the ship for casting off, since that was exactly what it did while they all were still downstairs. Piers was interrupted mid-sentence by a grating slide, and quick thud, and then the signature sound of water flowing underneath. At the same time the ship began a gentle rocking. Garet moaned.

"Ugh, I'll never get used to that."

She watched Jenna shoot him a sympathetic glance, but he failed to notice.

Piers' vessel was laid out with an elegantly simple design. His quiet enthusiasm and pride were infectious as he led them on a whirlwind tour. On the lowest deck were the bedrooms, two of them. Not too many in theory, but these were easily large enough for any group of people who'd spent time sleeping in dark, wet caves the size of a closet, their size the only respite from wandering attackers. Behind them were storage rooms and a staircase to the engine room below. Above lay the kitchen, a chart room and library, and captain's quarters. The top layer was a common room, its door opening out onto the deck. For the remaining duration, Piers had explained, he would share quarters with Isaac and Garet, leaving Kraden where he had previously been, by himself in Piers' room a floor above. Felix was not mentioned; when Isaac brought it up, barking the pointed question, the sailor only shrugged.

"He said he'll sleep under the stars." Then he opened the door to the girls' room.

Her first impression was of light, and space, a shaft of sunlight from a single round porthole dancing merrily along the worn wooden floor. The accommodations on this ship were better than most of the inns she'd spent a night in, from the sandy beds in Suhalla to the cold and wet hovel they'd found one stormy night in Altin. A thought that had been hovering in the back of her mind finally pushed its way to the fore: just what kind of society was Piers from, anyway? His pride was merited and exceeded by what she'd seen so far – wealth, displayed in a tasteful and discreet fashion that made it all the more noticeable. She couldn't say where the idea came from, but something about the decor reminded her of a place she'd known intimately in her past. Where...where... The coin dropped. Mercury Lighthouse. Now that she saw it, the signs were everywhere. She watched dust motes flicker and spiral lazily as Piers' voice hummed explanations, apologies, pointed out features. The subtlest traces gave it away, lines and shapes that she couldn't truthfully say she really saw, but that were nevertheless there. The turquoise blue she had loved so much in the paving stones of the lighthouse was hidden here and there for her eye to find, in a vase, an inlaid chest. No wonder she felt so at home so quickly – the lighthouse was all around her. The bloody, dusty, callused fingers of long ago that had shaped her second home, stone by stone, were the same that had laid the keel of this ship, who knew how many centuries ago. Who knew when this ship's wood was new, when men had cheered and laughed as it sailed off under the morning sun? She shivered.

Mercury Lighthouse had given her a similar feeling. The other Imilians had avoided the weirdly straight and smooth pile of stone, looked away from its yawning, open doorway. As a child, she'd been warned like all the others to stay away, told horrible ghost stories to frighten her. The spur for her came, as it always did, when he dared her. His mischievous, strangely mature little face quirked in a sarcastic grin.

"C'mon? Scared? The elders are old grandmas, they don't know anything. When have any of them been in there? Let's go take a look. Maybe it can be our secret hideout." She reluctantly took his small hand in hers, finger stuck firmly in her nervous mouth. He was like that, always planning, calculating, dreaming up some scheme ten times as grandiose as his last. Sometimes she surprised strange shadows in his eyes when he was staring in a daze from the window of the little school and she snuck up behind him. Sometimes he let slip a word or two whose meaning would only be pieced together slowly by an older and more sad Mia. But she had reached the entrance of the lighthouse with him. It was a double-edged sword standing upright from the land – the villagers felt that its presence protected them, but they didn't huddle too close for fear of disturbing the forgotten wonders that lay deep within. Myths and rumors of great and terrible bloodshed, and the tale of a mere handful of wise and powerful rulers who had sealed away the demons of Alchemy; these stories were treasured, passed on without being understood. Beyond the familiar fountain, a spring of hope that was nevertheless visited with fearful, downcast eyes, the door stood half-open.

Inside was nothing she'd expected, her tiny head craned up, her finger staying in her mouth no longer in fear but in absorbed wonder. Centuries of dust stirred underneath her gentle feet, sunlight from another, lost world filtered in through high cathedral windows. She'd spent a few hours there with him, playing little games out on the center floor, with the mute ages watching in peaceful slumber. It had become a sanctuary for her, and at some point in her teens she'd first gone alone when he was on a trip. Of course the elders knew all about it by then; some busybody had reported the two children leaving almost daily for the lighthouse. He'd been angry about the intrusion, what he saw as a violation of his privacy; she was relieved. Sneaking around had never left her conscience settled properly.

To her surprise, though, they were never called on the carpet for it – instead, the council quietly transferred the duty of lugging Hermes' water along the trail to Imil onto their shoulders. Mia bore up quite lightly under this punishment, wearing down a path with her buckets of water through years of routine. He hated routine. He was always trying to escape, to break free of something, some constraint that Mia never saw or felt.

Right before the end he'd taken to wandering farther and farther afield, spending days lost in the tundra, days holed up in the library, days climbing the Lighthouse. It hurt her that he'd never told her about his explorations inside the tower – of course she knew he was doing it. He'd most likely thought she would only worry and fret about danger if he told her. He'd be right, but that didn't change anything. Her childhood friend and student didn't trust her anymore. He felt his thoughts were only safe with himself.

And then one day she noticed he was missing. It had been a few days since she'd last seen him. She went to the lighthouse, the library, the school, their secret meeting place in the forest just outside town. Finally, distracted and anxious, she opened the door to his room, to find it swept bare, soullessly clean. Nothing of its owner had been left, though she checked all the drawers and his closet; in the end, that had been what hurt her the most. He hadn't even left a note.

Then the fountain ran dry. She bore up with the same cheerful smile, went fewer and fewer times to her old haunts until she couldn't remember the last time she'd been inside. Then the blue snow came, then the monsters came. Then she just missed visitors from the south, bringing the sickness with them. Then one day, her world fell apart, split into shards by the blue light from an ancient power released again.

"Are you okay?" Sheba was watching her with a faint smile. The world snapped back, sunlight and vague hints of Mercury Lighthouse fading into place.

"Uh...yeah. Sorry," she muttered, looking around and seeing the others had all gone. Jenna was making a bed with her back to the pair, red hair shimmering with quick, decisive movement. How long had she been standing there?

Piers had apologetically but firmly left one room for all three girls to sleep in. She left her things in a corner without objection. There was nothing to say, after all: starting an argument with Piers, so far the only friendly face in Felix's following, was just stupid. She tried to make herself small and invisible, noting the lived-in look of the room. Best not to intrude on an established arrangement. Jenna and the blond girl had moved quickly to tidy up and clear a spot for her, and she saw with bliss that she had her own bed. This was truly luxury. When the other two had finished they all stood around for a second, trying to study each other without making overt eye contact. Mia spoke first.

"Thanks."

The others piped up in near unison.

"Oh sure." "No problem." Sheba was still studying her, traces of laughter on her face that she couldn't hide. She hadn't meant to blank out like that. A silence stretched out, interrupted only by the waves. Sensing that her roommates wanted to be alone to talk, Mia removed herself discreetly and headed up the stairs to the main deck, where she would be interrupted by a certain intrepid sailor.

* * *

><p>And that's a wrap!<p>

Just a warning: It's been a LONG time since I played these. I'm following along with a game walkthrough and script, but I can't guarantee everything will mesh perfectly.

Also, since I haven't played TLA in a while and I can't be bothered to boot my save, find my ship, and go to Lemuria so I can walk around in it, I took some creative liberty with the ship's interior, also known as "made it all up off the top of my head". I used what I remembered of the general architecture.

I'm no professional by a long shot, so leave a review and let me know if this is working out okay or not.

Thanks!


	4. Dinner Bell

Hi all!

Sorry about the delay. I have been SNOWED UNDER with end-of-year papers, tests, etc. etc. blah blah. I don't even remember the last time I was on here, so my schedule's out the window obviously.

Thanks to **Fried Chicken () **for the awesome review, the only one for chapter III so far. You rock dude!

For some reason I really hate the beginning of this chapter. I liked it when I wrote it, and I still like the last half, but the prose part I've just given up on. I can't write every chapter as a long conversation, but still. Also I'm gonna change the title when I think of something less stupid. Cheers.

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><p>Catharsis<p>

Dinner Bell

_So if that was Felix who kidnapped Jenna... Then why do you have to go save her?  
>- Vale villager<em>

_Wielders of Psynergy are called Adepts. Adepts are messengers of  
>good... Never forget that.<br>– Great Healer of Vale_

Dinner was horribly tense and awkward. Mia entered the common room, following the persistent _ting _of a small triangle. She found everyone else already gathered around, standing here and there and waiting. After a minute, a swinging door at the far end of the room silently eased open and Felix emerged, straining with the effort of carrying a fat black cauldron. Sheba ran to get the door for him while he balanced his weight carefully. Settled, the kettle was deposited onto the floor, where it sent a savory aroma floating into the air.

Felix straightened up, puffing very slightly, and held out a stack of bowls and wooden spoons. All the others shuffled into line and moved forward as he passed out the dishes. When Mia reached him, inward fear biting at her stomach, he reacted in no way, simply giving her a set of utensils without comment. He hadn't spoken a word since she'd met him earlier, and maybe that was part of why she was so afraid of him. He showed no fear, or any emotion at all for that matter. He was clearly asserting what he felt to be his right to be wherever he pleased.

At the same time, though, he hadn't started any fights (probably only because he refused to say anything at all), which was good. Meals aboard ship were apparently a self-serve affair, each Adept in turn taking hold of a large ladle and spooning his or her own portion out of the pot. She reached it without incident and helped herself – it smelled delicious, so she tried not to look at it too closely. Unfortunately, she did anyway. The soup spoon moved more and more slowly until finally she halted for a minute or so, unsure whether to throw it all back or not. Something touched her hand on the ladle and she started involuntarily, then tensed as Felix's fingers pried hers off the handle, one by one, and scooped a serving from the depths of the pot.

Mia risked a quick glance at him and saw he was smiling to himself, but still he refused to break his vow of silence.

Still trailing behind all the others, she strode quickly to get away from him and sat on the floor near Isaac. Everyone had found seats in the common room, haphazardly selecting good locations on the floor or on chairs or benches. The two groups still naturally gravitated away from each other, one at each end of the room. Being as far from Felix as possible bothered her not the least. Besides, she wasn't exactly unhappy to huddle close to Isaac. As Felix came in and dropped to the planking near Piers, Jenna, and Sheba, she dropped her head and examined the thick goo in her bowl carefully. It definitely smelled better than it looked. It was some kind of viscous brown liquid with chunks of different things all stained to a uniform brown floating in it. For a moment she almost wanted to get rid of it and go without but Garet elbowed her. She looked up quickly and saw understanding in his eyes.

"Don't worry, it's good. Not just by my standards. Eat up."

She smiled at him in thanks and tried a bite. It really wasn't bad. She wondered briefly who the cook was and decided it probably would be better not to know. As the non-combatant and also as the only girl she'd done her best to cook for the boys on the road. At first her efforts had been appalling, consumed with gusto by only Garet, who really would eat dirt if nothing else was available. She stifled a smile at the recollection of Isaac confiding such dark secrets to her one hot and particularly dull day when the road stretched painfully straight and flat for miles ahead.

_"...Oh yeah, this one time, when we finally got to the store and it was closed, he took off his shoe, opened wide_..."

As time had passed, though, she'd gotten better through experience and was now a quite passable cook. Ivan took an interest in the culinary arts and was always helping her and experimenting with her creations.

With her friends around her and a hot meal in her lap, she felt at ease for the first time since boarding this ship. She looked around her quietly, enjoying the sensation of catching her friends unaware. Garet, as usual, was wolfing down huge spoonfuls without even taking time to taste what he was eating. He'd piled a bowl ridiculously high, with nearly as much stew outside of the bowl as in it. Garet and Isaac had had an incredibly poor running joke for the longest time that he ate so much to keep his hair spiky and standing on end; she hadn't actually heard that one in a while. When were they going to have some fun again? Ivan was hunched over in between her and Garet, working his spoon like someone would take it away from him any second. She wondered about him, he was like this sometimes. Like someone had...hurt him.

He never talked about his time with Hammet. He'd seemed happy enough when she'd met him, and Garet had told her that Ivan nearly strangled him with glee when they'd made him the offer to travel. Isaac was staring off into space again, his hand taking over the task of feeding him while his mind floated somewhere far away. Sometimes it was fun to guess what he was thinking: Vale maybe. His family. The quest. His friends. Unwillingly she peeked over her shoulder to spot the other four. Piers was telling some outrageous story in a low mutter that peaked and jumped with the plot, his hands waving recklessly in the air. Sheba and Jenna were in the throes of a laughing fit. They'd even gotten Felix to crack a smile. She felt peace in this moment. She almost felt that she was at home with all these people. She did her best not to think, not to ruin it. She turned back and lifted the stew to her mouth; it was going to get cold.

Mia ate in silence, losing herself in the creaking of the ship and the cadence of rising and falling water outside. It really was a deeply melodic rhythm, and it would put you right to sleep if you let it. She yawned. Through a sudden mental haze she looked up and spotted Isaac. He was cute even when he was fiercely angry, as now, but he also made her worry in this mood. She didn't want him to do anything dumb and she definitely did not want him to get hurt. No need to pick fights with Felix. Just as this crossed her mind, the Adept in question stood, stretched, and announced to the room in general that he would do the dishes. His piece said, he turned on his heel and left, pushing the swinging door to the kitchen open and disappearing beyond it. Mia stacked her bowl in a small pile with all the others, and stood for a moment in indecision. She didn't feel quite ready for bed but didn't know where to go. Garet solved the puzzle for her by touching her shoulder.

"Hey Mia. Wanna go up and look at the stars?"

Up topside the sky was already fading to a deep blue-black. Countless stars twinkled and shone, dwarfing the observers with their beauty and immediacy. Garet admired them for a moment then turned to smaller matters.

"So what do you make of all this?"

Mia stared off into space, still unsure of herself but suddenly wanting to share all her emotions.

"I don't know. Piers seems nice enough, I talked to him earlier. He told me this crazy story about a sea monster or something. I really didn't understand any of it, to be honest. He realized at the end that I didn't know any of the places he was talking about and said he'd explain it someday. Jenna and Sheba I haven't really talked to yet, but they seem nice." She trailed off, unwilling to continue with the person they both wanted and yet didn't want to discuss.

"And Felix," Garet prompted. Mia let out a harsh sigh.

"Garet, I know it's silly of me, but he really scares me. He hasn't said a word since we left Contigo, and those guys had to drag 'yes' and 'no' out of him even then."

Garet chuckled reflectively.

"You know, he's really been like that ever since we were kids. All the time he's just far away somewhere, deep in a bottomless pool. I'm used to it. I'll level with you and say that in my opinion he's making a strong effort to be civil." Garet sighed in turn. "It's just going to be hard however it works out. At this point, I don't think anyone but those two really want to fight each other, and I don't think they really want to fight each other either. They were once best friends, remember. Closer than brothers. There's been a lot of bad water under the bridge since then. I don't know. All this time I felt the same way Isaac did. Then we got to Contigo and I saw him again for the first time in a while and it all just kind of melted away. I don't hate him anymore, even though I probably should. I just feel sorry for him. I don't know if that means I'm letting Isaac down. You know I'd still have his back in any fight– but this one? I really don't know." He paused for a moment of silence. It was a beautiful night. The stars blazed with white fire, distant and cold. Mia spoke up again.

"I can't say I'm ready to forgive him myself. And I've never even met him. Everyone else on this ship I think I could have liked under different circumstances. But look at how many lives he's wrecked, all the destruction he's caused – you were the one who told me this in the first place! He's just off the hook now?"

Garet replied gently, without anger.

"Don't forget that one of the lives he's ruined is his own."

Mia opened her mouth, shut it again. Garet continued. "He's hurt himself pretty badly, I can tell. Who knows what all this misery and weirdness has done to him. It was bad enough for us and we were the good guys all along. Even with a good motive, he still had to play the villain. Isaac knows that too, deep down. He's just frustrated and angry, with himself as well as Felix. He's a lot less temperamental than me, but he holds things against people for longer. Felix is even worse – broods for days."

"I don't feel sorry in the least. Ivan met his sister in that awful house for the first time in his life, and instead of being able to show his happiness he's told he has to leave right away to fix the mistake he's made? The mistake that Ivan made. You remember Ivan, right? If I wasn't so afraid of him I'd fight him myself."

Garet sighed.

"He's not a bad person, Mia. I don't know what's happened to him or why he's done all this, but I'm convinced that there's an explanation. I wish you could have known him before the flood came."

She sighed, unconvinced. But there was no point in starting this argument with Garet now.

"Yeah...I guess. I don't know." She left without another word. He spoke to the sky and her retreating back.

"I don't know either. No one knows." He sighed and rubbed his head. This was going to get worse before it got better. At least he had the stars for company.

Mia floated along the corridor to her room, completely absorbed in thought. She couldn't decide whether to get angry at Garet or not. Sure, they were once best friends, but wasn't Isaac his best friend too? They'd been through plenty together, and now Garet got cold feet, all sentimental over a mute jerk. She mostly felt disappointed. The warm feeling she'd had at dinner had faded completely, replaced by a parting sadness. Why was he doing it this way? Why couldn't she hang on to that little moment of peace? She rounded a corner and nearly bumped into Felix. Her eyes flew open wide and she backed away with a jolt. Felix studied her through lidded eyes, long seconds ticking by. She waited for a reaction, fear competing with slowly rising anger. In all her life, she'd never met anyone who treated her with such complete disregard. He just didn't care. He was studying her like a book. How did he have the right? She wasn't the one responsible for any of this mess. And then Felix came to some internal decision.

"Why do you hold it in? You can't make anger last. Let it out." It always took her by surprise when he spoke; she was so used to his quiet.

"I'm not that kind of person. And why do you carry around your despair? Why don't you let it out?"

He smiled, a hard edge. Mia took a step back despite herself, her heart racing. She tried not to look around, to look for help, look for escape. She shivered and tried to steady herself, tried not to flare into combat.

"Quick, aren't we? I can't let go just yet." He looked at her, emotions locked away again. "You remind me, you know. How can I let go when I see you every day...and I don't even know you." She shifted, looked away. His words must have spurred her, because her thoughts spilled out overflowing before she could control them.

"I'm not going to feel sorry for you." Her eyes flicked back to his. "This is all your fault."

"I know." That was all. The words fell and died away. They stared at each other, trapped in the unwilling moment. This was the worst she'd seen yet; he was trying to hold it all in, fighting mightily to keep control. His face remained tranquil, but his eyes were shattered like a broken dam, a flood trying to pour out. And he was staring into her with the strangest smile.

She wanted to scream, to rage, to fight. This sinister world of shadows and smirks was sinking in all around her, leaving her with no way out. And she hated it, with a burning passion she had only felt once before. Just strike clean and straight, right between those terrible eyes.

But she didn't. Not that she couldn't; she felt it all rising to a boil within her and then, before she could fully understand, she was running, tearing herself away from the magnetic horror of those eyes. She felt a panicked sob rising to her throat as she stumbled down the corridor. Garet was wrong. They were all wrong. Whatever Felix had once been she could not bring herself to face what he was now.

This? This frozen, dark ruin was the hero that would save them all?

* * *

><p>R&amp;R please!<p> 


	5. Gathering Storm

Saturday update! Woo! Aaand...it's Sunday. Proof of my descent into madness.

Thanks to **Kairikiani** and **fegs2fan **for the reviews of Ch. 5. Somebody must be paying them to be nice to me.

I decided on an **Official Song** for this thing, which is "Shimmer" by Fuel. I dunno, it fits so well. And I was going to recommend it to you anyway as a great late-night writing soundtrack. Look it up.

_She calls me from the cold, just when I was low, feeling short of stable  
>All that she intends, and all she keeps inside, isn't on the label<em>

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Gathering Storm

_For some reason, the ocean fills me with hope and desire... If you ever see the ocean, remember men like me, who dream about it.  
>– Bilibin merchant<em>

_Black clouds are looming. If you're headed that way, be prepared for rain.  
>- Bilibin villager<em>

She awoke from a troubled sleep to the sounds of the ocean. They were already beginning to grow familiar to her, the rocking rhythm an addictive and omnipresent pulse. She began to understand the siren song of the sea, the silent call that had quietly drawn off not a few of her playmates in Imil in her childhood. Light streamed in through a round window set in the wall. The room was already deserted; it seemed about midmorning. She'd slept in late. She got dressed methodically, brushing out long blue hair. While she worked, she listened intently, but heard no sound.

_I wonder what this day will bring._  
>Stepping outside into the corridor, she continued to listen, making her way with catlike tread to the door of the common room near the stern of the ship. As she approached she heard quiet conversation which was instantly stilled as she entered. Jenna and Sheba looked up from the ruins of breakfast, watching her.<p>

"Um, good morning."

"Hi," Sheba responded. Jenna just waited. Everyone was so distant, so cold. Mia rolled her eyes mentally. This was going to be a long trip. She swung through the kitchen and grabbed some fruit and bread and headed out on deck. The sun was fully up, burning away the last of the morning mist. The ocean sparkled and danced. Land was nowhere in sight. A few fluffy clouds chased the wind across the sky in dreamy slow motion. She decided she had never seen anything so beautiful. The pristine view, however, was suddenly marred for her roving eyes when she spotted Piers and Felix standing close together near the ship's prow, consulting a map in Piers' hand. She swore. Wasn't there anywhere on this damn ship she could go without bumping into people she didn't want to see? Before they could turn and see her she ducked around the back, putting the cabin superstructure between them. She didn't need any confrontations right now. There was enough going on. She stared fixedly at the ocean as the sounds of voices drew nearer and nearer. At last she heard the cabin door open and shut behind her and let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. With their presence off her mind, she could finally relax. The sound of the waves returned to the front of her mind, occupying her thoughts for some time.

Without conscious decision she found her train of thought wandering back toward Felix again. She hated him for his actions, she hated him for the way he scared her, she hated him for the way he so effortlessly seemed superior to her. But she was going to apologize for what she had said last night. This wasn't about him, just her and her guilty, over-sensitive conscience. Just apologize, and then hopefully never talk to him again. It wasn't fair. Well, she wasn't going to waste the morning thinking about the worst person on ship. She pushed all such ideas out and switched to the subject of Isaac.

She was a young, impressionable teenage girl with little experience of the outside world. He was a dashing, handsome and brave boy who seemed to carry her along into glorious adventure after adventure. The months on the open road had given her plenty of time to reflect, and it hadn't taken long for certain ideas and emotions to set in. The particular blissful daydream she let herself slip into was interrupted this time by the sudden impact of Ivan, all ninety pounds of Wind Adept that he was, into the deck five feet from her. Jolted from her reverie, with annoyance she traced his descent from the crow's nest, far above her. He stood up and brushed himself off, wiping his blond mop off his face to reveal a particularly infuriating idiotic grin. One or two Jupiter Djinn spiraled down lazily to circle around just above his head.

"Morning, Mia! There's quite a view from up there!"

She raised an eyebrow pointedly.

"So nice a view that you jumped off, huh?"

He continued to smile like an idiot.

"Hey, now, I couldn't resist. Nothing is more alluring to the Jupiter Clan than the feel of freefall. It's lured many of us to our deaths."

"It'll be _your_ death all right. What were you doing up there anyway?"

Ivan began to resume his customary seriousness.

"It's the farthest away I can get without swimming. Tell me, Mia, can you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

Ivan shifted uncomfortably.

"...So tell me, how do you like the ship?"

Mia frowned but accepted the dodge. She'd drag it out of him in a minute, whatever it was.

"Eh. I went over this with Garet last night. Ship's fine, it's the people on it that bother me. Do you think there'll be a fight?"

"Hmm. I hope not. Whose side would anyone be on? Jenna and Felix," he shrugged, "I mean, who would fight for which side?"

"I don't think she likes me very much."

Ivan looked at her sympathetically. Two of his Djinn were locked in a swirling, tumbling mock fight.

"I can't say I'm really surprised."

"No? Why not?"

"Um, you know? Like, um, how, uh?" He prodded without success, Mia refusing to grasp his meaning.

"Alright, Mia, I won't push you. You'll find out sooner or later. So, um, what do you think of the other guys? They seem alright to me."

A question popped unbidden into her head, spilled from her lips.

"What do you think of Felix?" She seemed suddenly to have a driving urge to follow up this one subject. Why she was so interested eluded her for the moment. Ivan's face grew clouded, troubled.

"He's a mystery to me. I've grown out of reading minds without permission, but I'm tempted with him. I don't have any idea what he's thinking. Mia, he must be a good leader. He must have something, or they wouldn't have gotten as far as they have. Sheba and Jenna and Piers are all nice, but they're just missing something. Some fire. It's just...just... there's got to be more to him. Because what I see is different."

Mia looked into his face, turned in profile, his eyes lost in contemplation of something known only to himself.

"What do you mean?"

"Mia..." He turned to her, and she shrank back from something in his face. He'd gone white, as if reliving a nightmare. "I guess you can't feel it. The cloud?" She shook her head. "There's something dark over this ship, a cloud, a smoke, a bad dream. It ebbs and swells. I dance around the edges of it, like a child racing the ocean up the beach." She narrowed her eyes, wondering uneasily where this was going. Ivan caught her eyes.

"I don't know," he said unhappily. "There's something wrong."

What, that was it?

"I could have told you that," she said wearily. He gave her a questioning glance. "Um, sorry. I didn't mean to snap." What had that been, anyway? No need to hurt Ivan.

He nodded, still searching her face with that disconcerting intensity.

"If you say so."

Something had changed, she couldn't deny that. She just didn't know what it was. Ivan's worries were inexplicably irritating to her. Normally she had much more patience. She turned away and sank onto the rail. Ivan, after a minute's pause, turned and walked away.

This country was cold and hard, no place for either man or beast. The forgiving, laughing snow had given way to long streaks of thin, cold ice and dirty waste. Across the plain the tumbled scree rose up into the teeth of the mountains. Cold fog always hung over the mountains at all times of the year, thin and white. She shivered. Down south, they said, through those teeth, the tundra gave way to deep green forest. She stared with narrow eyes into the grey shadows, searching for movement, for a sign, for anything.

She had never seen it, but maybe her father had. She gripped his hand tighter.

"Daddy, have you seen the trees?"

His remembered voice was rough and warm, filled with an everlasting vitality.

"What, in Kolima? I've been there once or twice. Why?"

"No reason," she said, exultant. Of course he had been. Her father knew everything there was to know.

Back then she had not noticed the blasted ruin the tundra really was, the godsforsaken land that would support no life. Now she could see it clearly, but that was all she could see. On that day when she had held her father's hand the caravan that brought him had come in. He was as small as she was then, easily lost in the bustle of men and horses. His blue hair had already been long, and he already wore, when he was lost in thought, his habitual expression of discontent. But when her father had brought him to her, he had smiled easily enough, and she had smiled back. It was only natural.

Now she waited as the grey clouds rolled in overhead. There would be more snow come nightfall. Blood from her hands dripped into the slick ice at her feet unnoticed. Gradually she opened her eyes wider. No terror would come out of those passes worse than what had already vanished through them. He was gone. He had slipped out into the world beyond. She began looking for something else, for someone to come back through those sentinels, blinking to keep her vision from swimming. Eventually she fell to her knees, ignoring the impact the ground sent up her spine. She couldn't stop crying. And he had never left a note.

She heard a steady stride behind her, and shook the water from the corners of her eyes. But Piers walked right past her as she looked over her shoulder, headed up to Isaac in the bow. She shifted a few feet farther down the railing toward them and listened.

"I got your message," Piers said, amusement rumbling in his voice. "You wanted to talk to me?"

Isaac turned around, looking confused for a second. Then she saw his face clear, and split into a sudden, brilliant smile.

"Hahaha, oh yes. Back in Alhafra, wasn't it?"

Alhafra? She barely remembered that. In Osenia somewhere. They'd been putting in at ports all across the Eastern Sea, farther and farther out from the Lighthouse, hunting for a ship, a flag, a note, a cloak flowing in the streets ahead. They found nothing, but Isaac had carefully kept abreast of Felix's progress, leaving tireless messages. He had just missed Piers, and Felix had found him somewhere inland.

Piers was making a deep bow to Isaac.

"At your service, sir."

"Any requests I could make of you now would be useless," Isaac said, still smiling. "Our race seems to be over."

"No one knows yet who won," Piers observed, leaning on the rail at the nose of the ship. "And I am not yet so sure there are not a few miles left."

"Well said," Isaac replied. "You're probably right."

How strange, these two meeting like this. Who could have seen it? Mia began to take the thought seriously. Hama, probably. If anyone in the world would have known that a blond boy from Weyard's heart and a sailor from a mist-shrouded lost civilization would meet, it would have been Hama. She was intrigued by this conversation, and almost missed the click of the cabin door opening. Garet's flame-red hair was visible around the edge of the door.

"No one knows what we were racing for, either," Piers said after a moment. "There should always be a prize in a race of such grandeur and difficulty. But could you tell me what it is?"

"I can't, but I imagine Felix could," Isaac said. Piers shook his head.

"No, I'm not so sure," he said thoughtfully. "Felix is following a separate course. He has his reasons, but what should ours be?"

"Saving the world?" Isaac said, echoing Mia's silent response. Wasn't that the answer? But Piers was silently shaking his head again. Garet stepped out onto the deck, more softly than she had thought he even could, and eased the door almost closed behind him.

"Remember, my friend… we might not be." He took a breath. "We might bring on the end ourselves."

"We don't have any choice," Isaac said, perhaps more harshly than he meant to. He looked contrite enough, and Piers let it pass.

"But do you really want that to be all? You had no choice?"

"I don't know," Isaac said, a bit exasperated. "What do you think the answer is?"

Piers had a habit of composing his thoughts before answering. At times like these she was forcibly reminded of just how old he really was.

"Let me tell you about Lemuria," he said, so softly she could barely hear him. "Let me tell you about my city. Lemuria is what is left of a vast empire, older than the memory of any mortal man alive. It is a beautiful city. The remains of its glory can still be seen, but it is weary, and it is silent."

She pushed off the rail and took a step closer, no longer pretending not to listen. Garet and Isaac were equally spellbound. Piers' voice picked up volume and power.

"Let me tell you of an empire dying slowly in the sun, like a dog that has lived out its days. A people who have drunk themselves into oblivion, who have forgotten the future and ignore the present. My country, blissfully idle, wasting to nothing. My countrymen, lying in bed because getting up is too much work."

She winced at the edge in his voice. But he fell silent.

"I don't know," he finally said. "But I'd like there to be more. More than just… being forced into a decision I'll regret. I want something to fight for. It's easier to make the choice for me, but I think we all have something we wouldn't want to lose."

Isaac stared out to sea, and she nodded reflectively. It was hard to argue with that.

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><p>R&amp;R please! Thanks for reading!<p> 


	6. Blue

Thanks to **PinayAngelisaBEAST**, **shortykilz**, **Sun and Moon Entity**, and **jellyfish **for chapter V reviews. Shortykilz and jellyfish weighed in with helpful comments about issues with the dialogue and the overly long chunks of text, respectively. I've tried a little reformatting and now it's hopefully easier to comprehend and lighter on the eyes. Feedback respectfully requested.

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><p>Catharsis<p>

Blue

_He is Felix, the leader of our group.  
>- Kraden<em>

_It's all right... This one has such kind eyes._

_- Lady Dau_

She was confused and shaken by what Ivan had said, so she instinctively went to Isaac. She found him standing alone at the nose of the ship, hair and cloak flying in the wind. She stood beside him and watched the foam spray out from either side of them, beneath their feet. Isaac spoke reflectively.

"What does any of this mean?"

"I don't know," she said. She laughed. It was so crazy, so wrong, this insane patchwork of myths, excuses, mistakes, and misplaced enthusiasm. "I don't know. I'm just trying not to go crazy."

"I never expected this," he said. "I- I mean, in a way, I'm glad he's right after all."

"Why?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"He used to be my best friend," Isaac said softly. "In a way, it's a relief to know he's not what I thought he was. He's not some kind of evil monster. He's just doing what he thought was right. On the other hand…" He heaved a gusty sigh.

"Isaac, we haven't done anything wrong," she insisted. "You made a perfectly understandable mistake. It was just a mistake." But what a horrible mistake it could have been. And they might never have known. Or worse, Felix might have told them – with his dying breath.

"What a mistake, though," he said. "What if we had succeeded?" She shuddered and banished the bloody vision from her mind.

"Don't think about that," she said, trying not to reflect on how she was echoing Piers. "Just don't. It didn't happen. We didn't know."

Isaac fell silent. There was a gull crying somewhere above, but she didn't look for it.

"Ivan thinks something's wrong with Felix," she said after a while.

"I know what he means," Isaac replied, relief at the change of subject evident. She sighed to herself. Why did everything go wrong in the worst way possible?

"I don't. What does he mean?"

"I was talking about this with Garet. Felix is only a little remnant of what he used to be," Isaac said. "I mean, look at him. Something has torn him down. Something's wrecked him."

"What are we going to do, Isaac?" she asked anxiously. This talk of wrecking and ruin was not helping her mood.

"I don't know. I'm going to confront him soon about all this. I've put it off long enough already. He'd better have some good answers ready for me."

"Well, I'm with you," Mia declared. "But Garet's not and I don't think Ivan is either."

Isaac half-turned in surprise.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Garet said he doesn't want to fight Felix and Ivan doesn't either. I can't understand it, I thought that's what we came all this way for!"

Isaac looked at her, astonishment deepening.

"Is that what you think this is all about? Really? I don't want to fight him either! Mia, I never wanted to fight Felix! For one thing, he'll beat me to a pulp. I don't know if even the answers I'm looking for are worth fighting with him. Clearly he's not in control of himself – there's something, I don't know ...But I thought he could still be my friend. I just wanted the answers, I wanted him to give me an explanation I could believe, but he refuses, he won't give it to me."

He smacked the railing with an open palm. "Darn him! I'd believe whatever he told me! Anything, anything...and he doesn't even try. Who is he these days, anyway?" He fell sadly silent. Mia decided the wisest course would be to keep her thoughts to herself.

_Apparently it's just me that wants to kill him, _she thought, only a trace of bitterness. She stayed with him, listening to the crashing of the water and the pulse of her heart.

"He wasn't always like this, you know," Isaac muttered.

"Yeah, I've heard that before. Garet told me the same thing. How much can a person change, Isaac? He sounded pretty terrible before I met him-"

He cut her off in shock.

"Mia, stop it! It's not like that! How can you say that?"

"I don't want you to be disappointed like this, Isaac! You let yourself hope he'd be something other than what you told me, over and over, that he was."

He slumped onto the rail.

"Maybe you're right. …No. No, Mia, that's not true. I knew him as a kid, he was happy, he was my friend. He was my friend. Once."

"I don't think he is now," she commented. Some demon was driving her on, pushing her confusion and bitterness to the surface. She was just as frustrated as he was; the only difference was that she wanted to hear the answers from him. Felix could keep all the distance he wanted from her. Why couldn't anyone else see what he was?

"Mia, please. I have to believe that he's still in there somewhere, that it's not really Felix doing this to me. I wouldn't be able to take it. I nearly wasn't able to take it, when we were on the road, before Jupiter Lighthouse." They fell silent again. Eventually Isaac laughed.

"Heh. I guess I was a little too hard on him when I talked to you before. I was pretty angry then. Garet was too."

She spun, quick passion rising in her voice.

"Isaac, no! Don't blame this on yourself! There's only one person at fault for all of this. You haven't done anything. You...you can't forgive him if he's not willing to be forgiven," she finished. He stared wordlessly. She drew breath, collecting herself to launch into part two, but suddenly there was a call from behind them – Jenna.

"Lunch! You guys want any?"

Isaac stirred a little too fast for Mia's liking.

"Kay Jenna! Be right there!" He was halfway to the cabin door before he realized she hadn't stirred.

"Coming, Mia?"

"Uh...yeah, I'll be there in a second, Isaac!" The cheerfulness in her voice died with the echoes of the door shutting behind him. And that was that. She was alone again. Isaac was too hard on himself, too good-natured. Too willing to take the fall. She wouldn't let him take responsibility for whatever Felix did, no matter how mean she had to sound. And now she knew for sure that she couldn't count on him anymore, not with Jenna around to... distract him. She felt a little moisture on the side of her nose, wetness that wasn't rain, and suddenly decided she wasn't hungry. She broke into a shuffling run, not wanting anyone to see her like this. Down two flights of stairs, along the long quiet hallway, into her room, shut the door.

She sat heavily at a small desk, overwhelmed. Something to do, anything to distract herself; she summoned up a small puddle of water, condensation, spilled it on the desk surface. She touched it with a finger, began drawing, slow lines, careful curves. The shapes blurred before her, and she dashed a hand across her eyes. Salt water, newly fallen, mingled with the fresh before her.

Without really trying, she found she'd put a heart on the table. She drew a long, steady, crooked line through it, wiped it away with a careless flick of her hand and started a new one. They came faster and faster, drawn sloppily all across the wooden surface. One last set of lines and curves, bigger than all the rest, in the center, in which she wrote two names. Her own...plus another. Behind her a door opened, a voice she was slowly growing familiar with filtered in. She jumped and spun around.

"Sheba? ...Oh." Felix stepped in. She watched him carefully. His voice matched his features, rough, rich and dark. His eyes flicked around, restlessly, finally settling on a point just behind her. In horror she reached back and raced a trembling hand along the table, but she could see that the damage had been done already. He turned his gaze back on her, and for the first time since Venus Lighthouse she could truly say that he was alive. His eyes were brown pools, liquid and flashing. There was suddenly spark and animation in his movement, and again she could compare it to nothing but melting ice.

"...I see," he said, guttural tones overlaid and softened by warm sympathy. "I'm so sorry..."

She hardened into resolve, hunting furiously for something to throw.

"Get out of here. Just, just get out." Without a word, he left, sad eyes flicking away. The door closed softly, too gently for Mia's taste. Damn him and his compassion. She turned back to her diversion, but her heart was no longer in it. She stared instead, blank gaze boring into the desk before her. Her eyes hurt to use, but she didn't care enough to close them.

She'd really always known that this would probably happen. She just chose to ignore it, chose to pretend. Somewhere along the long dirty path from Imil to Contigo she'd been listening to Isaac ramble on about his friend Jenna and made a decision to ignore him.

She had made that decision so strongly and immediately that she hadn't known she'd had a choice. Only now, bleeding from every pore, did the fork in the road become obvious. She curled in on herself, pulling her feet up onto her chair and wrapping her arms around her knees.

Why had she done that? It was so hard, so unfair. Of course she shouldn't have. Of course she knew better. But she couldn't have done anything else. Every time she ran through it in her mind, the outcome was the same. And it certainly wasn't Isaac's fault. He was merely too handsome and chivalrous and innocent for his own good. He was the kind of hero girls like her dreamed about at night, the ones that would take care of them and protect them, the right kind.

And she couldn't have him. She felt herself sinking below the horizon, moving faster and faster from the crossroads against her will. She wanted to stop, to deliberate, to ponder. Toy with the idea of claiming him, fighting for him. But she instinctively knew she couldn't do it, she just didn't have it, and the idea slipped away almost before it came. Jenna would take him.

And what was she left with? Nothing. Garet was nice but not Mr. Right. Ivan was...no. What could she look forward to? Arguing with that jerk Felix the whole way to Prox? The thought forced her one step closer to desperate, hysterical tears, torn between laughter, anger, and despair. She was being torn apart, ripped inside out. The bottom of her universe had just dropped away yet again. Again. And this time, it was her fault, even though she couldn't do anything about it. She waited around in reality to see if anything would happen, not quite ready to let herself slip off into merciful quiet. The angry bees in the pit of her stomach buzzed and raced.

And then the door flew open, a laughing pile of Jenna and Sheba falling into the room, a whirlwind of life and exuberant color. They quickly overwhelmed tear-stained senses and worn mind. Mia waited until a path opened to the exit and moved for it. They were in hysterics over some joke or prank in the real world outside this room; she wasn't even sure they'd noticed her.

"Hey, uh, Mia, are you, ah-haha, okay?"

She just wanted to get away. She didn't answer, and the raucous laughter behind her resumed. She went across the hall and cracked the door to Ivan's room, peeking silently into the darkness. Nothing was visible to her unaccustomed eyes, but after a second she picked up gentle snores. Good. Hopefully he'd get some rest and feel better when he got up. She shut the door, twisting the lock so it made no noise.

Now it was time to get herself thoroughly lost, so lost that no one would ever find her if she was lucky. The end of the hall seemed a promising start. She started walking toward the engine room, opening doors at random, up stairs, down stairs, through passages, once across a short tightrope. She was continually tripping over boxes, forced out of her way by piles of crates and ropes. Sooner than she expected, she got a gratifyingly loose sense of where she was. She was still on the same boat, probably, and that was about it. Another featureless dark wooden door, rounded off at the top, came up before her, and she descended a spiraling staircase beyond it.

Long after she started her quest, she rounded a corner into nearly absolute darkness. She'd seen a few weird things already. The tightrope was one. The piles of abandoned raw materials everywhere were another. But now there was an eerie blue light dancing on the walls and ceiling. If Piers had a miniature ocean inside his ship, she was going to discuss the quirks of Lemurian engineering with him whenever she found her way back. But it wasn't the reflection of water. She couldn't sense any, and the light was too steady. Curiosity overpowered her vague sense of disinterest and propelled her forward.

She caught a foot on something and put a hand out to the wall for balance, surprised when she touched it. It almost felt like...rock. But that was nothing compared to what she saw when she looked up. It took her breath away. Violent cracks in the floor before her shone with a pulsing, dull blue light. They radiated away from a central pillar, a single upright column of dark material which held some object. A big, round black sphere, it looked like. She snaked into the room, hugging the wall, and sat down facing the entrance, drawing her knees to her chest once more and keeping her eyes fixed on the light. Not a bad spot she'd found. Obviously this was the central core of the ship; she felt the tug of Psynergy now that she'd taken time to recognize it for what it was.

Hopefully no one ever came down here. She cried freely when she was upset. It was part of the Mercury thing, she'd eventually assumed. She let the tears stream down her face while she rested her mind, not thinking too long or hard about anything in particular.

Probably she would have fallen asleep at some point, had not someone walked in through the hallway opposite her, the floor illuminating a worn pair of boots and torn and baggy pants. She heard a faint tune, simple and wild. Felix was humming to himself. He knelt down and fell to his knees, spilling tools around him with a discordant clatter. He put one hand on a section of blue lightning that seemed dimmer than the rest. A stronger glow came from right under his hand and the blue – stuff – began to rise from the floor. He carefully pulled it up, drawing it on with his hand, until six inches or so poked out from the level ground. With his other hand he grabbed a hammer. The most incredible racket Mia had experienced in quite a while began almost without pause. She regretfully stood and was beginning to move around Felix when he abruptly stopped.

"Who's that?" She stood still. "Mia?"

"I was just leaving."

"No, no, I'll go," he said hastily, gathering together his equipment. "This isn't that important. Sit back down." She complied. He pushed everything he'd brought into a corner and turned to face her.

"I'm sorry you can't get away from me. I'm not trying to torture you." She raised her eyebrows in wonder. An apology? That wasn't fair. He couldn't be nicer than her. That was cheating.

"I, um. It's not... well. I'm sorry for being mean to you."

He smiled, teeth white in the dim light.

"I've taken worse abuse. Don't worry about it." Felix drew his brows together in confusion as something occurred to him. "How'd you get in here? I didn't see you in the kitchen."

"The kitchen?"

"Yeah, the trapdoor in the floor that leads right down here." She mentally smacked herself. Of course. The trapdoor in the floor. Felix made the mental jump. "Wait, that means you took the long way down here."

"Yeah, it was long all right."

"I don't know if you noticed any, um... largish puddles, or blue jellyfish, or mythical ancient weapons laying around back there..." He gestured helplessly, and she couldn't help but smile.

"Heh. No, I didn't see anything wrong. Checked recently?"

"No, we never go back there. Piers has so much crap laying around that it's impossible to navigate. He swears he needs all of it. I couldn't tell you why." She almost laughed at his banter, but suddenly fell silent. Felix was so alive, so animated. His normal mummified despair was so absent that she was unnerved.

"Who are you?" she asked, her twisting gut lending stridency to her voice. "Who are you really? Are you a man or a demon?"

Mercifully, he leaned away from her, keeping his distance on the far side of the chamber. The blue glow lit up his face from below, casting harsh shadows above his eyes.

"I always hated you, Felix. You've destroyed so much and done it so well." Part of her wondered at herself, at her surroundings, at this whole surreal conversation. But they were here now and she couldn't keep in the tremors boiling out of her. "Who are you? What are you?"

He did not respond. He did not move a fraction of an inch. But he wasn't staring at her, into her, as before, but to a point somewhere far off in the past just above her head.

"Who am I indeed?" he mused. He shifted his full attention on her; she shrank uncomfortably under the weight. "I am less than a man, but I am more than a demon. I hope."

And that was it. He just left, uncurled himself and walked away. She stared in bewilderment as he spun around again to face her.

"About earlier. Earlier today." He paused and searched her face in the murk, confirming that she knew exactly what he was talking about. "You know, sometimes it helps me to... light a candle. They're in the storeroom if you want one. Just light it and watch it burn down."

"A candle? Huh."

And he was gone. She shook her head, trying to make any kind of sense of the preceding five minutes. Felix had approached her alone. He had not eaten her, first off. He had talked like a fairly civilized person, then uttered some cryptic nonsense, and finally left without another word. The lightning slashes in the floor flickered and trembled.

She laughed bitterly to herself, alone in the warm silence.

"Trapdoor in the kitchen floor, huh?"

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><p>R&amp;R<p> 


	7. Crux

It's been quite a while, folks. New chapter for you.

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><p>Catharsis<p>

Crux

_Who are you? How did you... come this far?  
>Ah, yes... How indeed?<br>- Master Poi, Kraden_

_Speak! Or let your silence condemn you!_

_- Shin_

It was afternoon. Normally this part of the day was one of Mia's favorites. The morning's sleepiness and energy had worn off, a good meal was in her, and she was ready to tackle a few more miles before dark. Now, however, she just wanted it to end – let her sleep. She needed the blankness; her thoughts hurt to think. She couldn't stay off the upper deck – it was the most picturesque and open part of the ship, after all. In her room she was too trapped, and Jenna or Sheba could come in at any minute. At least here she had avenues of sight, a place to retreat, some room to breathe.

She closed the common room door behind her, the tang of sea air flooding her lungs. It was starting to get to her, she felt. The presence of the sea was addictive. Voices floated to her, twin streams of language on the breeze. Curious, she walked along the wall of the cabin towards the front of the ship, and as she rounded the corner she saw the source of noise. It was Ivan and Felix, standing still and watching the distant horizon fade to blue. Her ears pricked, peeking from the shelter of the cabin corner, and words began to separate themselves in her mind. Ivan was talking.

"...I don't know. They just sort of come to me. It's odd. Sometimes when I'm not thinking about anything in particular I'll just suddenly dream up a new way to use what I have, and a name comes into my head. I do wonder where they come from though. Especially since the association of word with Psynergy always just seems so...right. It fits like a glove."

Felix's words rolled out thoughtfully, dropped one by one with care.

"There are a few fragments of legend floating around. Some say that the four Elementals named them at the dawn of time, others say they were already named by then. Some speak of words of power, discovered by the mighty giants who walked the earth long before us. A few almost seem like pieces of another language... Ragnarok. Odyssey. Gaia."

"Interesting," Ivan mused. "All those you name are Venus type. Yours. I can't think of a Jupiter psynergy that is named in that way. It's just the words for what they do."

Felix paused before speaking again.

"Speaking of your Psynergy, can I see a...demonstration?" An indefinable edge had crept into his voice, a hunger that sent shivers uncontrollably down Mia's spine. Ivan had caught it too: he shrank back ever so slightly, but his voice issued forth clear and outwardly calm.

"A demonstration? Of what sort?"

Felix turned.

"Can you make...wind?"

Ivan snorted. His pride was ruffled by the question, but he retained his caution.

"Can you breathe? What kind of wind?"

Felix waved his hand vaguely.

"Just...wind."

With a shrug Ivan shut his eyes. An imperceptible whisper of air slowly picked up speed. Mia's hair ruffled, twisting and dancing. She quickly brushed it out of her face, impatient to see what came of Felix's experiment. Finally Ivan reopened his eyes, a stiff breeze flowing around him.

"Satisfied?"

"Come on. You can do stronger than that," Felix snapped, impatience slicing cleanly through the air.

Ivan moved more slowly now, unsure of Felix's ultimate aim, but ultimately he complied. The wind grew fangs and a voice, biting deep and keening thinly. Felix faced into it, unknowingly turning in profile to Mia. She saw with a sudden worry the bared teeth, the furrowed brow, wide nostrils. His face had changed to someone else's. He spoke, half to himself.

"Catharsis. Isn't that what we all really look for? When we finally know for sure that happiness is beyond our grasp, we learn to be content with numbness." Mia drew sharp breath. It was almost as if he were talking to her... Ivan opened his mouth in alarm, was cut off. "Make a storm."

He shrank back again. This time he let his fear show, open and pitiful. Mia winced. She'd almost felt that she knew what Felix was talking about, almost wanted what he was clearly looking for. She'd forgotten all about Ivan for that split second, and she kicked herself and angrily pushed her thoughts down. Despite his obvious terror, or perhaps because of it, his eyes had closed once more. The sky changed, blue swelling to grey. Bloated storm clouds filled out and hung over the ship like heavy birds of prey. The sea beyond the deck turned an angry black, waves rising to white tips. The wind attacked with redoubled force, singing savagely. Felix stood in the center of it all, feet planted wide and firm on the deck, answering Weyard snarl for snarl, fierce animal rage returned tenfold.

Then it all ceased abruptly, choked off and killed. Blue sprang back with sharp violence, color and life flooding into her senses again. The clouds shrunk with weird speed, changing color from bruised grey back to harmless, fleecy white. The ocean sparkled and danced merrily. Ivan drew ragged breath.

"I won't do this for you, Felix. You need to let go of hate, not embrace it. Catharsis is found after forgiveness, not before." For just a fraction of a second Mia thought Felix might spring, tensed for an intervening blow. But he merely stood.

"Doesn't it feel good to let go?" he said softly, almost in confusion.

"It does," Ivan said. "It does. But that's no excuse." Mia found to her surprise that he sounded unsure. She found she was unsure as well.

"No excuse for what? You'd rather keep it all in? I don't even know if that's possible."

"Nevertheless," Ivan said. "There's so much of it… so much power. I am wary of it."

"And you may be right," Felix said, turning away. "Forgive me, then. I…forgot where I was."

"I understand."

Ivan drew a long, shuddering breath, staring at Felix's retreating back. Mia ran to him as soon as the coast was clear. He turned tired eyes on her, not bothering to wipe away the drops of sweat running down his forehead.

"He's going to break, Mia. He can't keep this up forever. Did you see?"

She nodded. It didn't seem like he wanted comfort, so she let him ramble on. "I see why they've followed him so far, though. He's like no one I've ever met. There's a fire burning deep within him, a tearing purpose that knits together everything he's got left. When that fire flashes through you just jump to obey; you don't even think about it." Thinking back, she didn't know whether to agree or not. He'd made an impression on her, that much was for sure.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Mia. Thanks for asking." That was what he said, but his appearance was not one to back up his words. Sometimes she wished she had his ability to read minds, and right now was one of those times. She'd give quite a bit to know just what was running through his mind and what the right words were to make him feel better, more at his ease, but she couldn't. She was left with the ancient predicament of those confronted with the terrible and mist-shrouded inner depths of someone else's troubled soul. Words failed her. What good could mere language do to bridge that gap? So she hugged him instead. Impulse and emotion never failed at times like these, when they were needed most. He stepped back from her with grateful eyes.

"Thanks. I needed that. It'll get better, Mia. There's no real balance here, just tension. Just two rocks tilted into each other over a chasm. Something has to give." Ivan's expression changed to something near sheepishness. "I don't mean to cause you more anxiety, but... pray that the better half of him wins. We need that man. The other man will tear us all apart."

She nodded, despite wondering cynically what better half Ivan was talking about. His statement was only too true. What she'd seen yesterday had left a curious impression, the faintest seed of a concept that bothered her when she thought about something else and playfully hid when she tried to chase it down. It would come to her eventually.

They stayed there for a moment longer, catching their breath. Mia didn't want to bring it up, but it had to be asked.

"Do you… Ivan, do you think he's right?"

Ivan stirred and looked out to sea. A faint smudge on the horizon might have been land.

"I don't know," he said miserably. "I don't know, Mia, I really don't. Can we just use this… to make ourselves feel better? Shouldn't Psynergy be… I dunno, more _sacred_ than that? And would the rush and flow of that much power just… just ruin you?"

"I know what you mean," she said. And she left unsaid what they both were thinking. It felt so good, so good, to just let it all out, to let it go…

She heard the triangle that night but didn't bother getting up. She'd never been a heavy eater and events had completely ruined her appetite over the last few days. Something needed to happen, something was going to happen. She'd felt it all afternoon, like a wild animal tasting a hurricane in the wind. The air was pregnant with meaning, the very planks thick with intrigue and tension. Maybe it was just her. Having purpose torn completely out of their life could do that to someone. She was just hanging, just waiting. It nearly drove her crazy with boredom and stress, both at the same time. How doing nothing could be so intense was beyond her.

More and more the ship felt just a hint like a prison, a confine. She'd taken a fancy to it the moment she stepped aboard. It was nothing like the worn-out and beaten tub she'd sailed in with Isaac. But there was no denying that it was a trap under the right – the wrong – conditions. She couldn't draw breath without Felix bearing down on her. Jenna and Sheba, seemingly inseparable, were always breaking down the door at all the wrong moments. She wasn't sure where Piers and everyone else spent all their time, but they were floating around. She passed them in the hallways, on the stairs, on the deck. There were just too many people for some reason.

The library was generally always deserted, but it was a ruin right now. She could practically feel the dust gathering on the floor. Neither fire nor death would keep the boys from dinner. If she concentrated hard enough, the faint clatter of plates and silverware reached her. She gave it up and fell back. Despite spending the same amount of time as her doing nothing since Contigo, they'd retained their road-whetted appetites. She, on the other hand, needed nothing more than a comfortable chair to distract her. Piers knew how to pick furniture.

He did not, it seemed, know how to organize a library, since maps, charts, papers, files, parchment in all its stages of creased and stained decomposition, lay on every flat square inch of the room. Apparently he just grabbed things he needed at the moment and then threw them randomly into the room at large on his way back out the door. She slumped farther into the cozy recesses of the padded cushions and closed her eyes to shut out the disaster surrounding her. Normally she was a fastidiously neat person, but this was a job to tackle at the beginning of a good day. Definitely not at the tail end of a very long, depressing, and exhausting one. Another minute elapsed. She shot up, rocking out of the chair and onto her feet. It was just too much to take all of a sudden. She needed a space outside this room, needed a little more air.

Outside in the hallway, nothing had stirred. Dark must have fallen outside, because the lights were on again inside the ship. She'd have to find out how that worked from someone. Maybe Piers could tell her, if she could ever get him alone. She stretched and yawned, arching her back and pushing her arms as far as they would go. Mercury, she was stiff. And tired. She wondered again how sitting around on a ship could be so mentally and physically draining. A thought occurred to her. Maybe Felix was right for once. He'd acted unusual in more ways than one last night, so it wasn't as much of a stretch as it sounded.

She turned slowly around, pointing with one index finger as she tried to orient herself. This way. She proceeded down toward the storeroom door, pushed the latch down and swung the door inward with her shoulder. This room was only marginally better than the library, and only because things in here had to be kept in the barrels or boxes they came in. Nevertheless someone had done a fine job making sure that there wasn't a bare inch of floor. The moonlight through the room's single large porthole fell upon a sight that would shake the strongest nerves. Crates in all shapes and sizes lay tumbled haphazardly everywhere the eye turned, stamped with symbols in a language she didn't know. The lids had fallen off a few here and there, and their contents lay undisturbed, frozen in their first chaotic rush to freedom. Plant parts, ropes, books, objects in lumpy paper wrappers, even what looked like a chunk of purple Psynergy crystal.

And over in the far left corner...candles. She scaled the central mountain of clutter, ducking her head underneath a hanging spiderweb of ropes of varying thicknesses, and hopped down the other side. The candles were just within the grasp of her fingers as she crouched down where she was and reached out for one. The wax was smooth and cool to the touch of her fingers. They were quite big candles, about two inches across; why thin tapers weren't equally useful to the Lemurian mind was beyond her. She stood very carefully, gingerly testing her weight on the boxes before moving. She didn't fully trust any of this mess not to catapult her through the floor.

A floor-to-ceiling cabinet and shelf stood against the wall on the right side of the door, and she made her way toward it. It was battered and heavily abused, tiny drawers hanging out crooked and dented. Two upper doors hung partially open, revealing long rows of bottles. Some looked like medicine, others looked meant for "medicinal purposes". She smiled, remembering the arguments of her adopted grandparents over the precise meaning of that term. She used to sneak Grandpa hot toddies when Grandma's back was turned; he'd captured the soft spot in her heart from the very beginning.

Anyway, the matches were here somewhere. They had to be. She began opening drawers systematically, starting from the top left corner and working across and down. Bits of paper and clouds of dust flew up in her face with each pull, stinging her eyes and making her cough. Yank, slam, yank, slam. Finally she gave up in mild frustration, having run out of drawers. How had Piers, a Mercury Adept like herself, done completely without the means of making fire? Well, she wasn't going to tear the whole ship apart looking for them. They were in his room, or in Felix's room, and it just wasn't worth the effort. She made to leave, and then on a sudden impulse turned back and looked up.

She carefully slotted her hand into the gap underneath the cabinet doors and pulled them open gently. They creaked out of the way, and she gazed at the revealed ranks of glass, quickly scanning across. It was a long shot, but maybe... there. There it was. Spirits from Vault. She ran a careful, nervous hand over the ancient paper label, smiling wistfully as the yellowed parchment crackled. Memories of laughing faces and falling snow, of snug fires well banked and cozy cottages shining bright in the cold, suddenly filled her.

For the first time in a long, long while, she was truly homesick. She wanted to be done with this quest, done with the worry, the stress, the tension, the danger. It had been a lot of fun. She'd never been closer to anyone in her life than her three best friends and she suspected that she never would be again. It was just barely beginning to look as though it might be fun again sometime in the future. But right now she was distraught over Isaac, unbalanced, and permanently on edge, and that moment was far in the distance, not quite even over the horizon. She unexpectedly wanted to see Megan and Justin again, who hadn't put in an appearance in her thoughts in months. She wanted to know that everything was as she'd left it, that the tiny and secure houses still stood in the white drifts. She wanted to go into the lighthouse again and just forget, just touch the ancient stones and let it all wash away. The feeling rushed over her in an unstoppable torrent, and she rolled and lost her footing in the onslaught. Something felt sticky; she looked down and was transported back to the present in a single moment, her mind silenced and emptied. Her fingers, tightly clenched around the candle, had molded into its surface, pliable wax squishing up through the gaps in her fist.

The hallway was practically the cleanest part of the ship, strangely enough. Fortunately the kitchen was kept spotless. She walked back to her hideout, caught in a fog of half-formed, trivial thoughts, nothing she could grab onto and bring to the surface. For those who spend much of their time in the realms they build in the sky, nothing is stranger and more disorienting than the loss of a train of thought, a complete mental blank. The constant companion, the endless chatter is suddenly missing, an echo ringing out and dying away in the lofty and vast halls that many voices usually fill. In the meantime she'd fallen back on the next lower level of subconscious activity, concentrating on the reflexes and motions of movement. She was actually relieved to a degree by the sudden calm. A break from endlessly revolving around the ugly picture of her personal problems was more than welcome, even if – or maybe even more so if – nothing at all was to replace them.

The swinging motion of her feet, the swishing back and forth of her skirt; it was almost hypnotic. Head down, she let her eyes unfocus, trying to flick her ankles out and move the fabric in different ways. In that position she was when the top of her head quite suddenly made rough contact with someone's upper chest. She stumbled back, blushing furiously. Beneath a familiar rebellious shock of fire-red hair, Garet stood. By his expression, he was currently the battleground for a three-way tug of war between confusion, pity, and laughter, though he was doing his level best to keep a straight face, bless his heart. He coughed unconvincingly, whipping his arm up to cover a quick smile, and managed through heroic effort to make his voice come out serious and even.

"*cough* Um, A-HEM, what are you doing?" Another quick coughing fit. She couldn't do anything but stand there and let fire burn up her cheeks. Garet finally cracked, unable to take any more; he gave himself over to a laughing fit, head thrown back, one hand covering his eyes and one on his stomach. She studied her feet again, then rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and finally flicked her gaze on the choking Mars Adept, who showed no imminent sign of controlling himself. At long last he took a deep breath.

"Aaahh. Oh man. I'm sorry, Mia, but the way you were walking, aha-ha-ha... staring at your feet!" He exploded again. She covered her eyes, hoping he'd disappear if she couldn't see him.

"Oh boy. Oh man. I'm sorry, it's just too funny. All right, I'm done," he said, his trademark broad smile evident in his voice. She looked up, and there he was, grinning away.

"Got a lot on your mind lately, huh?"

"Yeah, I do. Sorry I'm so absentminded."

"Nah, I'm the one who should be apologiz-," he started to say, cutting the last word off short and staring at her waist. "What the heck is that stuff? A candle and..." He looked up at her. "Whoa, Mia. You hitting the firewater? It's that bad?" Great. This conversation was just going from bad to worse as fast as it possibly could.

"No, I-" she sighed – "It's a long story. I'm not drinking it. It... this is something I used to see a lot in Imil. It's, umm... sentimental."

He rewarded her with a raised-eyebrow stare.

"I see." Pause. "...Ahh, I believe you. No reason not to. I used to get homesick a lot too." He made as if to pass her, but she stepped in front of him.

"Before you go, can you light this?"

She held out the mushy candle. He stopped short and held out a finger and thumb pinched together, a flame already slowly growing around them.

"Sure thing. Here you go."

He held them for a minute, working around the wick and melting a small pit in the wax. Finally it caught, and he dropped his hand.

"There. Enjoy."

"Thanks, Garet," she said gratefully, holding it close to her chest.

"Yeah, no problem." He passed her, turned as he remembered one last thing. "Oh, by the way. Ivan and Isaac and me have been in our room for a few nights. We just chat about stuff. Felix never goes there when we're in it, and Piers is always off doing stuff somewhere at night. You're welcome to drop by any time. We can tell stories or something. Just knock first," he said, that joker's grin creeping onto his face once more. "Don't want a surprise." She smiled in mock disapproval.

"All right, Garet. Thanks for the offer. I'll take you up on that soon."

"G'night." He waved a hand in the air over his back as he muscled his way down the length of the ship. Honestly, it wasn't even that he was big, though he certainly towered over her and everyone else; he just had presence, lots and lots of it. She smiled again, and turned to go her way.

"Night."

The library was as before: still deserted, still trashed. She pushed a thick sheaf of paper off the first desk she came to and set the candle on it. About to move on to the next thing, she turned and looked back at it, still holding it to the table's surface. There was a strong wobble present; that wouldn't work. The thing candles went into. Candleholder. Where was one? She looked carefully around the room. There had to be something – oh, wait. There didn't. The matches debacle came to mind. Mia turned back to the candle for one more long second and then froze it to the table with a single exasperated gesture. Definitely not the best solution, but at least she could let go of the thing.

She dragged the comfy chair she'd found earlier over to a convenient spot, puffing with the effort. They sure built these things solid, whoever they were. It had originally been a chair built in the Ancient Imposing style, but some comfort-loving individual had refurnished it with a soft and pliable cloth. The remains of the original hard red leather could still be seen here and there, poking out through frayed holes at the corners. The new cloth didn't really match the heavy carved and polished wood, but it was certainly much easier on the body, she felt. She slumped down into it and leaned forward, resting her chin in one propped-up hand. Felix was right again. She couldn't remember what he'd been right about the first time, but this was positively the second time she'd grudgingly said that to herself. The flame, dancing and soaring, a chained spirit, was hypnotic. Stare just above the searing white spot for long enough and the mind was instantly calm.

Her chair matched the furnishings of the rest of the room, what you could see of them under all the square dead trees laying around. It was all rich nut-brown wood, glowing in the candlelight. The arcing flame revealed finely detailed carvings of nautical and pastoral scenes running around all four walls, some kind of popular mythology. Strips of lath crisscrossed over dark stained glass on the doors of a few cabinets built into the walls, revealing the murky outlines of books and indistinguishable curios within. It was really a beautiful room. It deserved to be cleaner than this.

She found herself studying the outlines high above on the walls near the ceiling, playing little games with them. They changed with the changing light, lit from below as they were; one second benign and ancient, the next sinister and mysterious. That over in the corner, that was a curling bunch of grapes. Right next to it was a man, possibly a shepherd, playing some instrument she couldn't identify. She'd seen quite a few in the odd corners of the world she'd visited, but this was new: almost like two long pipes, spread out in a V. It was hard to discern. Back toward her a little, what was clearly a beach ran down to a long spit where a lighthouse stood. Little stylized waves, regular and even, bobbed and fell to where a great ship sailed, its high prow crashing out of the woodwork toward her. Around the corner, to the back wall facing the door, she spotted what looked like the four lighthouses. One, two, three... four. They were all there, each instantly recognizable. She found Mercury right away, then Jupiter, then Venus Lighthouse, then turned to the only one she didn't know; that must be Mars. It looked grim even on the wall of Piers' ship, with tiny windows and thick, heavy masonry.

Oddly enough, the four were spread far apart; Mercury was on the far left with Mars right next to it, and then Jupiter was on the near right with Venus right outside it. There was something faint in the empty space in the middle, but she couldn't quite make it out. She leaned across the table and squinted as the candlelight danced infuriatingly up and down, licking the bottom edge of something, an edge rounded, with two lines that fell diagonally away from it to the floor. Suddenly her light flared, and it flew into harsh relief for a split second. A sun, with wavy rays, atop a mountain. Then the protective cloak of darkness fell on it again, and she fell back into her chair, mystified.

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><p>I split this into two pieces because it went on for so incredibly long. There's more to come, hopefully quite soon.<p>

New record. Longest chapter yet. ^^

R&R please!


	8. Crux II

New chapter. Fourth time my changes have been accidentally deleted, so no happy stuff until the morning. I just want this out of my to-do pile.

K, here we go. Sorry for the horrific delay between chapter parts (!). In my defense, I had this proofed for some things I was unsure of, and I'm using a much more careful revision process. Enough excuses, here's the thing.

Big thanks to **Kairikiani **and **fegs2fan **for proofreading this chapter; I learned a lot from that and made some good changes. Thanks to **SaME, Kairikiani, fegs2fan **for reviews of the last update.

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><p>Catharsis<p>

Seed/Infection/Crux II

_I have a bad feeling... Like something terrible is going to happen.  
>- Jenna<em>

_If you know all that, then how can you ask us just to forgive him?  
>- Sheba<em>

A single flame in the darkness, dancing gently. It was so happy, so innocent, so unaware. The little flame, so unimportant against the backdrop of the huge, cluttered room, so wrapped up in its tiny games; what did it know? And yet the darkness was all around, creeping in, creeping out, waiting...waiting... She shivered, feeling a cold gust of air at her back, and then shot upright when she realized what it meant. She twisted in her chair, seized with the immediate desperation of panic.

"Wh-who's there?"

Piers was there. She could faintly see the lines of blue falling from his forehead, escaping from that headband he always wore.

"Oh, it's Piers. Didn't mean to startle you," he said quickly. She hunched forward again, resuming her trance. The flame danced.

"Look at it, Piers. It's so small. So fragile," she said dreamily. "And the darkness is all around, just waiting until it goes out."

"And you depend on it," he said. "You need it, and so you're afraid." She thought it over, and then nodded. "But look closer, Mia. While it burns, the shadows are just that, shadows. They must stay forever out of reach, back in the corners. The flame is stronger than you think. You just need to keep it lit." They watched, Piers content to join her in her newfound reflection.

"I guess you're right," she finally said, and let out her breath.

"Heh. You froze it to the table?" As he spoke, he reached out a hand by her ear and cemented it more firmly in place.

"Yeah. I couldn't find the thingy."

"Hmm. I wonder where that went. I know I have a couple," he mused. She smiled affectionately, adopting a teasing tone.

"How are you so wise and yet so clueless, O Mighty Philosopher?"

"Hahaha. Part of eternal life is learning not to take some things quite so seriously. It's around; I'll find it someday..."

"I see," she said, giving a sage nod. "Eternal life indeed…It makes so much sense."

"You seem to have rocked back onto your feet quite well, Mia. Tell me – have you been dipping into this?"

Why the bottle again? All everyone noticed was the bottle.

"No, I haven't. It reminds me of my home."

"Hmm." He lifted it off the table over her head, inspecting the label curiously. "What is this, anyway? Ah, the export. Good choice." He kept playing with it, tossing and turning it, letting the light flow through the browned glass between his callused fingers. Mia cleared her throat.

"I remember every fall when the wagons rolled in with our supplies from the south. We would keep the roads clear as far south as the mountain passes, but the Vault traders never wanted to risk the cold."

"Tell me, Mia," he said, sweeping clutter off a chair and sitting across from her. "Tell me about Imil."

Thoughts and memories flooded her. Imil? Where even to start? What to begin with? She couldn't even remember all the things she missed.

"I... Imil. It's always cold, always icy. It's the farthest north anyone's ever been. It's just a little town, huddled around the base of the lighthouse, like...like a shepherd. And sheep." She illustrated with her hands. He smiled appreciatively. "We love the snow. Winter is a dangerous enemy, but it's a playful friend too. We would play games, go sledding... In the summer, there's really nothing but marshes, but in the winter, when you're nice and snug by the fire and there's a storm outside – there's nothing like it."

"Sounds nice," he said, sincerity ringing in his tone. She knew that there were few people to whom snow was in any way exciting, but if he was faking interest, he was doing a good job.

"How about you, Piers? I… don't even know where you're from."

He sighed, having caught the pause in her voice.

"I'll tell you. First, though, let me finish up for the night. Would you like to come outside with me? Bring the candle." He took a few scraps of paper off the floor and headed out. With the assistance of the flame, she quickly melted the layers of ice and took her precious piece of wax in her hand once more. Funny, how a humble candle grew on you so fast.

The dark was above, as usual, both a comforting cloak and an alienating abyss. The stars dimmed their glory tonight, a sign of respect to the little candle, burning bravely in Mia's hand, keeping back the blackness. She set it on the deck and Piers spread the map out near it.

"So here we are," he said. "Here in the strait between Contigo and Gondowan. In here we're protected from the storms near Gaia Falls, and it's a pretty straight shot north to the Reaches and Prox." He laid down a dot, a little black blob of ink; a single daring point, supported by all the dots that had come before it, a snake winding down to Contigo.

She was so naive, so clueless. All the things she'd done and seen, all the footsteps she'd left behind; the blowing sand, the cool green waters, the jagged spires of the mountains, sudden death at every step. And yet still, something as obviously simple and commonplace to Piers as a map absolutely fascinated her. Despite everything, she'd only ever seen it all laid out from above just once before. Isaac's rough sketches, drawn in the forest leaves with the point of a sword, were not quite the same.

"It's...it's a bird's view. Right?" He studied her for just a split second before answering smoothly.

"Yep. That's right. You live somewhere in here." He touched a spot on the brown paper, and she squinted at it in ecstasy.

"Where I live...that's amazing. So if these are the mountains, Vault is here, and Isaac lives to the west of..." She trailed off. Piers helpfully hovered a finger over a different spot.

"Vale. Right here."

"Where are the lighthouses?"

"Um. Really testing my knowledge, aren't you. I _believe_ ... here, here, ...here by Contigo, and Mars is up here." The map faded off to a general blank area at the top.

"And where do you live, Piers?" Her ignorance was a bit of an uncomfortable shock. The constant combat had changed her, worn her down. It had made her a little more reserved, and yet a little more open, so that she could be swapping life stories with this man three days after they had met to fight to the death. They were now back to back, and she would probably have to count on him to save her life someday soon, but she still didn't know where he was from. She regretted her earlier brusqueness with him. Piers didn't deserve her grudges.

"Lemuria. Here." Right in the middle of the ocean, another blank spot that someone, maybe Piers, had penciled in with rough strokes. A curious place, an off-round blot, surrounded by vicious-looking spikes and swirls. She tried to imagine that in three dimensions and failed utterly.

"What's it like?"

"Lemuria...Lemuria is one of the ancient civilizations, the last existing remnant of the world that built the lighthouses."

She inwardly knew that her theory was confirmed.

"Lemuria has lasted all this time, since the fall of that world, thanks to a mystic draught that falls into a fountain. Drink of it, and you will have almost endless life."

"Really?" She was ready to believe anything, out here under the blaze of stars, far from home, close by candlelight. _Eternal life, huh. No kidding. Well, I've already seen people shoot fire from their fingers._

"It's true. But that civilization is stagnant. Our salvation...is poison." A personal, old grievance was creeping into his voice. "My people are lost in lethargy, indifferent to the outside world, to the imminent end. Only Hydros, Lunpa, and myself believed in the necessity for swift action, and so one night I took this boat, with the king's blessing, and rode the fog and the rocks to the world outside." He grinned. "Old and experienced as I may seem, this is all as new to me as it is to you, my dear. I only have the advantage of intellectual knowledge." She smiled back.

"I liked what you said to Isaac earlier, about having something to fight for."

"Oh, were you listening to that?" Piers asked, a knowing gleam in his eye. Mia blushed. "It's the only really reliable truth I've found so far. Always, always, have a cause. Strange beings we are… to live we need air, water, food, and a reason."

What was she fighting for, anyway? The world seemed too big and colorful to need saving. She would save the Mercury Lighthouse. She could save Imil. Now there was a reason. Odd how these things became so obvious when someone else pointed them out to you.

Now why had her first thought been saving Felix?

But Piers was speaking again.

"It is a beautiful place, despite its faults. There is nothing quite like the towers and courts of Hydr standing forever in the warm twilight. There are beautiful butterflies, insects with snow-white wings as big as my hand. And the water from the fountain; you can always hear it falling."

"I want you to show me someday, Piers," she murmured, entranced by the vision.

"I will do that. When this all is over, we will see the world at our leisure, all of us."

"Good luck getting Felix to come," she said, not quite quietly enough. Piers chuckled. She liked Piers. Laughter was so precious, and he dispensed it so freely.

"Hahaha. Has he been getting on your nerves lately? I thought as much. He likes you, you know."

She looked up in disbelief, unsure whether he was joking or not.

"Well, if it comes to that, you're pretty cute yourself. I'd rather have you," she teased. He laughed again, under the indifferent void of the night.

"Pssh, Mia. Have you no idea how old I am?" There was just the faintest hint of crow's feet around his eyes, as she looked over the candle flame.

"Not really," she said uncertainly.

His eyes twinkled with mischief. Piers was having a grand old time tonight.

"No, not really, but it'll annoy Sheba to no end." He bent over and whispered in her ear. Her eyes widened.

"What? Is that really your age?"

Piers leaned back, a satisfied smirk on his face.

"No. It's not. It's close, but not quite. But pretend it is."

She sat back, not quite confused.

"Um, okay."

He tipped his head to one side.

"You won't derail me, though. You're the only person on this ship who's made any kind of a dent in his shell. He talks about you all the time."

She felt a kind of scarlet heat crawling up her cheeks and the tips of her ears.

"That's not true. I've only been here for a few days! Don't tease me." He only gave her a worryingly knowing look, a look that faded rapidly enough to throw her off balance.

"He's quite fond of little Sheba. So am I."

She didn't know what he was trying to do, or why he'd changed the subject so obviously and rapidly after pursuing it. But she went along; getting out of awkward, strange territory quickly was just fine.

"Have you met her yet? No? Get to know her. You won't regret it. She's brought a much-needed smile to our faces many a time." He smiled as he said it, obviously thinking back to a specific event. Mia thought of Ivan, his frail yet strong features lit up with laughter, and a soft grin crept onto her own face.

"I will. Sounds like a charmer."

"Oh, she is," he said, his grin stretching from ear to ear. "You'll love her. Everyone does."

"Tell me, Piers. Did you ever...Have you ever had a...girlfriend?" She couldn't say why she asked.

"No," he said immediately, keeping himself in the present. "I never found anyone like that. I was only ever very close to my mother." There was something there, on the last two words, a suppressed catch of breath. Mia thought for a second and then reached the obvious conclusion.

"Piers. I'm sorry."

"She was an amazing woman," he stated, acknowledging her sympathy indirectly. There didn't seem to be anything more to say after that. If there was, it wasn't her place to begin it, so she shifted, leaning back onto her elbows, and watched the flame burn down. A few minutes passed, Piers' features now obscured, now revealed.

She was suddenly very content for no reason at all. This, this was why she'd stayed on, after all the months of misery, alternately damp, cold, hot, frozen, numb, bleeding, starving. Moments like this, when she had a friend at her back and a long road put behind her, when she could stop and catch her breath and marvel at the simple and profound glory she was permitted to see. Though it was both terribly dangerous and often emotionally exhausting, she knew she'd made the right decision when she'd walked out of Imil's gates so long ago in the snow.

"Mia..." Piers was watching her intently, and she perceived that he was thinking exactly as she was. "It's pretty ugly sometimes, isn't it." She nodded agreement. "And yet, I can't help but feel... It's all worth it, in the end. I can't help but think, despite the suffering I've seen and felt myself, that... I wouldn't trade this, this whole journey, for the world."

She chewed on that. The violence, the enemies. The mindless, animal monstrosities, always with the insatiable desire to kill, always leaping from nowhere onto an exposed back, tearing a defenseless arm or leg with weird, shrieking cries. The sharp tang of blood in her nostrils, theirs and her own. Her secret fear that she was slowly becoming numbed to it, slowly becoming an animal like those that attacked her. She remembered the tiring journeys from the floor of the world to the roof and back, all the days that she collapsed in camp with the others, too worn out even to make a fire.

And yet she remembered Garet, his broad shoulders a support for the entire group; Ivan, his sometimes eerie prescience and wisdom tempered by a childish attention span and worldview; Isaac, his determined leadership a beacon to follow. She remembered her first sunrise in the fields east of Vault, the blue-grey tang of wood smoke still rising from last night's fire as the world opened its eyes, cold and clear. She remembered rain running down a leaf in Xian, the incense smoke rising from the temple walls. She remembered the floods in Altin, her own exhilarated laughter rising to meet Garet's as they escaped by inches from the huge boulder they'd triggered accidentally. And she knew that Piers was right; she wouldn't have traded her life on the edge, in places few would ever see, for anything. She nodded in agreement, full of too much understanding to put into mere words. Piers smiled and touched her shoulder with a firm hand.

"We'll pull through, Mia. We'll get there. And it'll all have been worth it, when we save all the things we've seen, and the sun rises on a new Weyard. In time the darkness will fade; someday we'll look back on this and laugh."

On her way back, she stopped in the doorway of the boys' room. Gentle snores issued from within, courtesy of Isaac and Garet. One noise was missing from that symphony, and she looked in and saw the huddled shape of Ivan, staring out the window, arms wrapped around his knees.

"Psst. Hey."

He turned, and mumbled tiredly.

"Hey, Mia. How you doing?"

"I'm fine. You?"

"Mia. Listen. Let it go, please. For my sake. We...we can't – listen. This isn't right."

Her gut reaction to those words surprised even her in its visceral intensity. Let it go? Just like that? After all the things that he'd-

"Mia," he said, a bright and urgent emotion shining through eyes worn and ancient. "Let me in."

For some reason, she really didn't want to. There was a discomfort there, a reluctance that she had to actually fight. Why was that? She mastered it slowly, taking deep breaths, calming herself down, willing herself to open her mind.

_Mia. _

She was standing at the edge of a vast abyss. A great city climbed up the walls of the canyon, streets and towers at her feet. She knew that it was as if abandoned a moment ago, all perfectly pristine and dead. Water, a neverending torrent, poured from a river to her right, a river that came from nowhere. She stepped down, finding worn stone steps to meet her feet. A long, gently curving staircase led down into the half-light.

At the bottom, she found Ivan, standing by himself in the great plaza, wisps of humid fog rolling by his knees and feet. He was facing the great open hole into which the water disappeared, watching it roar as it fell. His hands rested on the grey wall built around it, and light from an unseen sun hit the cliff face beyond him. She came near, sliding her feet cautiously across the slick dark cobblestones, and he turned to meet her. There was a curious relief and joy on his face.

_Oh, Mia. I was worried you wouldn't let me in for a second. _

_Why? Of course I'd let you in if you asked. _

_Yeah, but – _he cut himself off abruptly. _Well, you'll see. I want to show you something. _He took her hand in his, holding tightly, and led her away from the water.

They did not make a journey in the usual sense of the word. Instead, they simply arrived. Mia had the vague impression of many houses, many streets, a long trek through the silent grey city and the mist, but when she pressed for details, they were fragments; a window here, a doorway there, an ornately carved vase. Her feet were not sore and she was not out of breath.

She had noticed, however, that the architecture had subtly changed as she went on. She'd left the oldest part of the city behind; the buildings around her were newer. Their forms were more blurry, indistinct, unsubstantial. Ivan had led her underneath archways, through tightly pressed alleys, into a small, dingy corner. They were trapped at the end of a long alleyway, a dead end in the endless maze of tightly packed shanties and villas. It was an awfully anticlimactic end to the trip.

_This is it? What?_

_Look, _he said simply. A building shunted up against the cliff face, dark stone climbing smoothly upward. There was a small iron pipe just above the level of her head from which water dripped, falling into a small round drain set at her feet. And...there was...

_You see it, _he commented grimly.

It was black, pure black, slick and wet. It was growing out of the drain. She couldn't tell whether it was animal or plant. A few small tendrils curled out onto the pavement, her pavement. And yet, this thing belonged to her too. It was...familiar. A drop of water plinked down on it, ran off slowly.

_Mia, _Ivan shouted, urgently. _Kill it. Kill it now. _It was so familiar...she had planted it there.

_You've let this poison infect you. You're not this kind of person, Mia. Let go of THAT. _He really was right. It was a stupid thing, her grudge against Felix. What _had _she been doing, anyway? She had never been the kind of person to hold grudges against anyone. And yet still. It was hers, definitely hers. She'd put it there, invited it in. With a little more water, it might turn into something easier on the eye. She strongly doubted that. But it was so alien-looking, so...evil. Maybe it was even right to leave it there. After all, _think of what Felix did to Ivan. Think of what Felix has done to you. He treated you so- _

She stomped on it, viciously, sudden fear, hatred, and horror lending force to her blows. Her feet were small and delicate, and she was unused to violent action, but all the same she smashed at it with all the force she could muster, while Ivan stood by with bated breath. Finally she stopped, breathing hard, and lifted her foot to reveal the bruised, shriveled mess she'd created. It slipped down the drain and was gone, leaving not even a stain behind.

And then they were back in the night, the ship rocking, the bed unmade. They were standing in the doorway, facing each other across the sill. She took a long, deep, shuddering breath and squeezed Ivan's hand.

_H-How did that get there? It was so potent, so easy to spread, so convincing... _

"Heh," he mumbled, stifling a sudden yawn. "I dunno."

"You…you don't know?" she asked, stunned.

"Nope," he said. "But I'm beginning to wonder if it's related to what Felix seems to have."

She trembled, a sharp spasm running down her body and away.

He talked quickly, soothingly, calming her down.

"Mia, it's okay. It wasn't your fault. I understand. Now that you know, it's gone...it won't happen again." Pause. He stared at her with wide, dark eyes. "...I was worried about you. You were acting so strange, angry all the time, hiding from us. I wasn't sure, but I had a suspicion before. Then just an hour or so ago… I knew for sure. I-It had you. I didn't know how much of a hold it had on you, and if you couldn't let go...if you... you..." He sniffled, ran the back of his hand across his nose. "I'm glad you're still here with me." She gave him a hug, but he only returned it for a second before he pushed her away, composing himself.

"You're a good person, Mia. It didn't even really have time to get a good hold on you, you know? It just made you a little depressed, that was all. I'm sure the...what we've gone through recently made it a lot easier."

She nodded. Ivan sounded so sure of himself.

"H-how could it be related? What is it?"

"You understand I can see things you guys can't," he said sadly. "It's the same thing, or nearly the same. I'm sure of it, even though I don't know much else."

Then the anger hit her.

"Did he give that to me?" That backstabbing, worthless…

Ivan shook his head, horrified.

"No, no! That's not it at all." He paused and she collected herself, feeling a bit of nausea as the surge of hatred passed as quickly as it came. Had she been the one to think such things?

"That was the thing again," he mumbled with relief. "Now it's dead for good. Mia. Felix has been hardened by suffering, wearied by death, numbed to pain and everything else. He is cold and tired but he is not cruel. He did not inflict this on you. He has never been the monster you were encouraged to think he was. He is trying very hard to finish something he wishes with all his soul he did not have to do."

She took a deep breath. Ivan misinterpreted it and rushed on.

"Don't worry about me, Mia. Honestly, I'll be just fine."

"No," she interrupted. "I wasn't going to argue again. Just – it's not Felix doing all this stuff? The storm this morning?"

Ivan nodded, pleased.

"The person who made me make a storm...that wasn't him. It wasn't. I know...I know what people look like, on the inside. He looks a lot like Isaac, under-underneath the black, the crawling..." He shivered quickly, recovered himself. "It's not him. Not really. We...we have to help him, Mia, help him get out. That person underneath...the other thing. I don't want him to die, Mia."

She just stood there for a second longer, and then nodded. A quick breath of something passed over her. Many years later, she still couldn't say exactly what it was. Maybe it was grace, maybe the sweet breath of Mercury touching her shoulders from far away. Maybe it was just a drafty old hallway.

"All right, Ivan. We'll help him. I-I promise."

He rewarded her with his old smile, his carefree, childlike, innocent smile. He was so young, after all. And he was saddled with more than any of them. She stepped in quickly after him, pulling the sheets up around his chin as he settled down.

"Good night, Mia," he breathed. She pecked him on the forehead and wistfully smiled back.

"Good night, Ivan."

"One more thing." He checked her at the door. "Remember, Mia, whatever it really is… it's just a virus. It just feeds off certain things in your mind. Doubt, unease, unhappiness, sorrow. I helped you get rid of the parasite...but you've still got to work through what's underneath on your own."

_We'll make it, Mia. Trust me. We're already on the path to undoing what we did by accident, right? We're doing the right thing. I'm sure of it. _She thought of Piers, saying almost the exact same words, and smiled.

_I know, Ivan. Thanks. _

Mia stared at the ceiling of her room, flat on her back, stifled in the sheets. The realization of just how close a shave she'd had was starting to sink in. This wouldn't mark the first or even the fifth time Ivan had saved her life. It was just what they did for each other. She blushed with embarrassment, thinking of how rude and self-centered she'd been. But the memory of how she'd acted these past few days was already slipping away from her. She couldn't remember how she'd felt, or why she'd done some of the things she'd done.

With a little probing, she found that the wounds of Contigo were still there, but they were ever so slowly beginning to heal. Her motherly instinct was trying to make her worry about Ivan, but she couldn't do it. He could take care of himself better than she could, she'd known that from the beginning. As for Felix? She didn't know what Ivan was thinking, what he wanted her to do, or whether she really wanted to help him, but she knew she would. A promise was a promise.

It was funny about Ivan. He just knew these things. She had no reason to doubt a single word of what he'd told her. Sometimes he would slip off into himself and see what no one else could see. Sometimes she wondered just how much he saw that he never told the rest of them. Not that she was accusing him of dishonesty, it wasn't that at all. But he was so much older than the rest of them, young as he was, and sometimes she surprised dark things in his eyes. She wondered what else he had known or suspected that he had not wanted to tell her. He had never mentioned exactly what she had been under. She shivered. Maybe she didn't really want to know.

And Felix. What _had _happened, anyway? Now she was becoming curious. What was this thing, this leeching, sucking evil? Where had it come from? How had he come across it first? She frowned.

To tell the truth, she'd been gentler with Ivan around than she'd really wanted to be. Saving Felix? From what? Did he deserve salvation in the first place? She was not quite ready to change her mind that rapidly, and it had still been his fault.

His fault. This was all his fault.

She swallowed, feeling suddenly, enormously guilty.

There were many things that were his fault. Sheba's life was his fault. Her life was his fault – who had kept Isaac and Ivan from being killed, honestly?

Her face grew hot in the darkness.

There was another Felix under the swirling demons. Now that the pendulum of memory had swung the other way, she couldn't deny that there was another man under there. One willing to take a leap of faith for nothing more tenuous than a bond of friendship. A man she'd been reminded of that morning. He'd really gone out of his way to be nice to her, first with the Isaac incident in this very room, and then later, when he'd found her in the engine room. How could that Felix, and the frozen, vicious Felix, exist in the same body?

Who was Felix, really?

* * *

><p>That's a wrap. Cue thumping outro music.<p>

You'll be happy to hear that while I was busy goofing off and falling off the face of the earth for the last month or so, I actually managed to finish 80% of the next chapter, so that'll be up nice and quick.

Loved it or hated it, please drop a review as you leave!

Also, I wrote this little oneshot thing in the interim, so while I'm shamelessly flogging for reviews I figured I'd mention that. Cheers all!


	9. Torn

New chapter! Some new actors on the stage here.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Torn

_Well, well... Our happy little family is back together again.  
>- Alex<em>

_Of course, you are welcome to believe whatever you want.  
>- Saturos<em>

That morning seemed different, in some strange way. The air was clearer or her vision sharper; the sun brighter, or maybe just her clouds blown away. She woke cleanly and completely with that rare happiness and self-confidence that only appear every once in a great while, and that no adversity can dent. The waves were sparkling more merrily than usual, the muffled shouts and statements of her companions more joyous. She took a deep breath and her horizon expanded. Whatever this was, it sure felt great. All the worries and pains of the last few days had fallen away like little scales, fading under the presence of this commanding new emotion. Mia pulled on her clothes with an eagerness she hadn't felt in far too long, quickly pulling the snarls out of her hair.

Before she left, she stopped and snapped her fingers. Four Mercury Djinn plopped into existence on the floor, their expressions conveying various forms of discontent.

_Hey, remembered us. _

"I'm so sorry," she said, crouching and wincing with guilt. "I haven't been myself at all."

_Aww, it's okay. Heck no, it's not. Quit harassing her, Fizz, she's been through a lot. Oh, fine. _

She shook her head to sort out the tangle. Djinni always did this. They were a lovable bunch though.

"So you know all about it already," she said. "Do you know about Felix?"

Unruly assent.

"Well, I already know I'm not going to get anywhere with him. See if you can talk to his Djinni, find out what happened to him and why he acts this way."

Unhelpful suggestions, smart-mouthed humor, and general deprecation, but one by one they skated out the door and left. She smiled. If there were any favors an adept could do one of them, she'd do it, but so far there was nothing.

Felix was in the common room, sitting at the table, books and charts spread in a thick layer under his elbows and forearms. He was blocking her way to the door outside. He looked awful.

"You look awful," she said, and enjoyed the mere act of speaking, of drawing in breath and exhaling.

"Mmm."

She bit down on budding sarcasm just in time, and forced herself to study his face.

By his face, Felix was in no mood for light banter. Scratch that. By his face, Felix had not slept at all last night, and had singlehandedly fought off a monster invasion instead. He had black and purple bruises under his eyes, his skin was sallow, his expression completely lifeless. His mouth was slightly open, but as she stood there he bit it shut.

And that was enough. She couldn't say she felt anything beyond a pure neutrality, but it was a start. No more hatred. She'd had her fill.

"Do you, um, need anything?" she asked.

"No." Every line in his body was telling her to get lost. She did so, skirting around him and heading into the fresh air. She couldn't do anything for him if he was like this. The Mia of the last few days, upset by the revelations in Contigo, further unbalanced by irrational behavior on Felix's part, had finally recovered and regained her feet. She said a quick prayer to Mercury thanking her for Piers and Ivan, bless their hearts.

Whatever it was about the world above decks, it was still there and still drawing her. The cliffs of Hesperia to her left and Gondowan to her right stood aloof, a forbidding funnel. She could just make out faint smudges of green above the chalky white stone, unknown forests, trackless plains. The sun extended its blessing on her third day of sea travel, obliterating shadows and distances with pure white light.

"C'mon, Jenna, let's just go say hi to her!" This in an urgent undertone from her left. She turned, shading her eyes with her hand, and saw Sheba tugging on a reluctant Jenna's arm. Sheba let go with a jerk and stamped a foot on the boards.

"Dammit, Jenna! I'm gonna get angry with you in a minute! Let's go!" She got behind Jenna and pushed, keeping up a nonstop stream of verbal harassment the entire time. Mia had to smile. While her words were ferocious, it was obvious that she had neither the body weight nor the actual intention to make good on any of the twenty or thirty threats she made before she got to where Mia was standing. Jenna, given one last shove, stumbled forward to a halt and refused to make eye contact. Sheba came out from behind her, blowing blond hair out of her face, and stuck a hand out.

"Mia. Sheba. Believe we've met."

Mia shook hands, unable to keep a broad grin off her face.

"Piers told me you were a character. How are you?"

"Good. I saw your face when you stepped out. Felix's pissed this morning, huh." She cocked her head sympathetically.

"Yeah, he is, but I'm not gonna let it bother me today," Mia said firmly.

Sheba nodded decisively. "Well, I'd beat him up for ya, but not even I'm willing to cross him when he's like this. Good attitude. Take it in stride. The block of wood over here is Jenna. You can see the family resemblance."

It felt good to laugh, so good to let it out, to be happy again.

"Heehee. Hi Jenna. Morning."

"Morning," Jenna said cautiously. Her eyes never left the ground.

"Sheba, you act like this around Felix, too?" Mia couldn't help but wonder. It was like a gravestone being friends with a little bird.

"Sure. It's my personality. We get along fine, actually. Same way in Lalivero; I never got in trouble. You'd be surprised; some days he's actually pretty nice. He opens up a little bit."

"I know," she said. "He had one of those yesterday." They began moving down the deck toward the prow as they talked.

"You wanna know something? I think you're doing this to him," Sheba said thoughtfully. Mia thought back to what Piers had said last night.

_"You're the only one who's made a dent..."_

"Really," she said. "What do you mean?" Sheba flopped her hand back and forth in the air to demonstrate.

"The personality thing. After all this time, me, Jenna, Piers, and Kraden aren't really willing to stand up to him when he's ugly, though we're worried about him all the time. When he's nice, he's nice, but it doesn't affect how he acts when he goes back to normal. If anything, it gets worse. And you guys," she gestured vaguely – "you guys aren't willing to talk to him. Only you talked to him. You're helping him fight it off a little, and the...the thing... it's not too happy about that. It's fighting back, and it's got him pretty securely this morning."

"Huh." What an interesting concept.

_And of course, I know how he feels. _

"Thanks," Jenna said suddenly. Mia looked at her curiously. "Uh, thanks. For helping him. I'm so worried about him, but I can't do anything. I just get annoyed...I don't have any patience," she said softly.

"Oh. Um, you're welcome, I guess. I spent most of the last year pretty mad at him, so I don't know how much I deserve that."

Sheba giggled. Jenna caught Mia's eye with a quick glance and unwillingly smiled, and with that the connection was made.

"I know how that feels," Jenna mumbled. "I fly right off the handle at him. So now at least I have the sense to keep my mouth shut."

Mia reflected on how odd this all was. They were talking like Felix was a perfectly normal human being. …On second thought, of course he was. She had to stop thinking like that.

"Aren't we supposed to be enemies?" she asked warily.

"Welll…" Sheba said, looking to Jenna for guidance.

"We're not going to fight," Jenna said decisively. "I know Felix well enough to know that. He's not going to fight you."

Some part of her relaxed at that. She hadn't known she was so tense.

"So, how are you doing, Mia?" Sheba jumped back in, pulling her along. "It must be tough adjusting to all this."

She shook her head. What was tough was keeping abreast of Sheba. As she talked it grew more, not less, difficult to believe Felix could handle this pint-size whirlwind.

"Well, it was hard at first. I mean, we were wrong that whole time? It was hard to accept. And Felix and I definitely got off to a very bad start. But...I don't know... Today I just feel like none of that really matters. I wasn't really ready to get used to it, but here I am." _Maybe I was almost ready to accept it this whole time, and I couldn't feel it underneath the shadow. _She continued, shelving the thought for another time. "…And hey, the faster we get to Prox, the faster we fix everything. On an intellectual level, I accepted that from the start, but only now do I really feel it." She made a mental note to thank Garet too, for once again pulling her through with the sheer force of his optimism.

"Mia..." Sheba said, her eyes warm. "I'm glad I stopped to say hi. I think we'll get along really well."

"Aww. Thanks, Sheba. Me too."

Sheba stooped.

"And now it's time for your official initiation."

"Initi-" The words were met and stopped with a bucketful of cold seawater, drenching her hair and clothes. As it ran off, her eyes cleared until she could see Jenna, obviously as startled as she was, and Sheba, laughing uproariously. She took a deep breath and traded a long, level look with Jenna, and then smiled deviously, enjoying the further surprise on the red-headed girl's face. A huge wave leapt over the side of the ship, wiping the laughter off Sheba's face in an instant.

"Aww, no fai-" The rest was drowned out by the roar of the breaking water. Jenna looked up from holding the hem of her skirt, water stains seeping up the cloth.

"I don't like getting wet," she protested, but she couldn't keep a straight face. Sheba sat up, gasping for breath.

"Augh! Whoo. Alright, I probably deserved that. Touche."

"Sheba, you dumped a bucket of water on a Mercury Adept. I'm not sure exactly what you thought was going to happen," Jenna teased sarcastically, beginning to dry them all off with one hand. Sheba grumbled wryly under her breath in reply, wringing her hair out with quick twists. _  
><em>"So, uh, Mia," Jenna said casually, still holding the gentle flame. Way too casually. "You got anybody special, where you're from?"

Sheba shot up straight, grinning broadly.

"Yeah, Mia, spill it!" The smile froze on Mia's face as she looked between them. The first face in her imagination was, of course, Isaac's. But she had bit her tongue just in time, naturally unwilling to just confess her crush at the first prodding, and her senses, given time to react, were going off in alarm. The timing of this was too strange, too sudden. It was as if it had to come before anything else. Sheba's smile was a bit too broad, Jenna's casualness a bit too forced. She laughed, outwardly perfectly at ease. The thing was, all three of them knew exactly what was in Mia's head. The only question left was what she was going to do with the answer.

"Wellll..." she said, drawing it out. She was going to dance around the knives. Very, very carefully.

"C'mon, Mia, tell us!" She grinned.

"Well, there _is_ this guy in Imil..." The emotions on their faces were genuine now. They hadn't expected that.

"He's pretty cute, and funny. But I never worked up the guts to tell him, and then I left," she said, relying on the bits of truth among the lies to make her voice natural. Jenna was leaning forward, unconsciously, completely betraying herself_._ Sheba's reaction was a little more unexpected. She'd dropped all pretence of frivolity and was staring at Mia with an open wonder that she found a bit disconcerting. Mia broke eye contact with her and drew a deep breath. Whatever pitfall was there, she'd just avoided it.

"So, how about you, Jenna? Isaac?"

She nodded, blushing; a little embarrassment, a little guilt. Mia smiled.

"He talks about you all the time. Jenna this, Jenna that."

Jenna swallowed hard, blushed harder. Sheba spoke up, her enthusiasm back.

"Haha. D'aww. That's sooo cute! Mia, let's get 'em together so Jenna can confess."

"Ah, shut up, Sheba! She's been doing this to me for like eight months," Jenna confided. "I'm going to eat breakfast now," she said loudly, over Sheba's helpless giggles.

"Hm. Yeah, me too. Having ice water dumped on me gives me an appetite."

Sheba scrambled up as they strolled away.

"Hey, wait! Wait for me!"

Garet was at the table inside, looking only a little less energetic than Mia herself. Felix had packed himself up and gone off somewhere. Jenna and Sheba veered off immediately for the kitchen door, but she stayed for a second to say hi.

"Hey Garet," she shouted, waving happily from the doorway. He grinned and waved back.

"Hey Mia. Lots of energy this morning, huh?"

She walked over to him.

"Yeah. You too? Why is that, I wonder?"

Garet smirked knowingly.

"You mean you don't know? Think about it, Mia. What's different today. Listen. Look. Think."

She slowed to a stop, thinking.

"Um..." Everything seemed the same. She didn't get it. What was he trying to say?

"Can you hear the waves, Mia?" Yes...

"Wait- we're not flying anymore!"

He flashed her a satisfied smile.

"Got it. We voted to take a break and let everyone recharge their Psynergy a little bit. It sure feels good."

She was taken completely by surprise.

"Wha-... I had no idea I was so drained. I feel like a completely new person."

"Yeah, I know, right?" He laughed wryly. "I think we assumed it was a little easier to fly than it really is. Even channeling Psynergy through that magic black marble of Piers', so we don't have to think about it, it still took a lot out of all of us." He picked one hand up off the table, looking at his palm. "We set the ship down last night, me, Piers, Isaac, and Ivan. Without all eight of us, it won't go anywhere, and the psynergy that's still going into it accidentally gets kicked back to the respective users, I guess. I strongly doubt that a village full of Contiguan crop farmers planned that far ahead, but the original designers just might have."

"Well," she said. "That's pretty neat, I guess." Something else occurred to her. "Too bad it's one of Felix's bad days today. He could use a little extra pep."

Garet turned, eyes open wide.

"Oh, man, did you _see_ him this morning? He looked-"

"-terrible. Yeah."

He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the ruins of his breakfast.

"Geez. Poor guy."

"Yeah." He looked up, curious. "Yeah, Garet, I'm not fighting with him anymore. I'm over it now. I guess-" she grinned, somewhat sheepishly – "I guess I just needed a good night's sleep."

He nodded in agreement.

"I know what you mean."

"I'll be honest with you, Garet," she said. "I'm not ready to like him yet. But I know you did once…and I know you too well not to trust you on this. If you want to find some answers… I'm willing to help." He slapped the table, delighted.

"Ye-heah! _That's_ the Mia I know!"

She giggled, jokingly giving him the "take-it-easy" look she'd been using for months. He sometimes got overexcited.

"All _right_! Well, I'll just step out of your way, then." She'd only seen Garet this excited a few times before. "Wait'll Isaac hears about this."

"Oh. Um, Garet?"

"Yeah?"

"I...I'm sorry. For how I've acted, these last few days. It's not like me."

Garet's grin got even wider and more relieved, if that was even possible.

"Geez, Mia, we were so worried about you. You never came around and talked to any of us. But, uh, Ivan told us about his theory. I guess he was right, then?"

She nodded.

"Yeah. Whatever it was. I just- I can't believe it was so easy for me to slip into that. How did that happen so fast?"

He shook his head.

"I dunno, Mia. I can't help you with that. I'm just glad it's gone now."

"Yeah. Me too."

She sighed.

"Jenna says she thinks we're not going to fight. Felix won't do that."

Garet, to his credit, refrained from saying he told her so.

* * *

><p>Piers drew in a breath, experimentally. Where was the breaking point? -Ah. There. His breath caught, painfully, hung up somewhere between his lungs and his mouth, and he spat out a deep, broken cough. A tiny red stain on his lips deepened in color. He took another step backward, placing the foot down ever so gently. His boot made a squishing noise, thanks to the rivulet of blood running down his leg. It felt odd, pooling around his toes.<p>

Now the other foot, slid back a cautious inch at a time, until his heel hit the cabin wall. There it was. He leaned back, gently, keeping his back tense until he felt his spine touch the boards. Then he relaxed, pushing his weight off his feet with a gusty sigh. He extended his right arm to full length, his sword never wavering, not a tremble in his nerves. He eyeballed the vast, horrific monstrosity that had invaded his lovely ship.

"Aright. I'm ready. Come on, you big bastard." It flung open a reddened beak and screamed viciously in response.

The funny thing was that he really felt no pain. Despite the long, horrible gash slanting down his stomach, which he was holding shut with the outspread bloody fingers of his left hand, despite the cuts on his face, the hole through the back of his calf, he couldn't feel anything. Just a slowly spreading euphoria.

"So you've poisoned me, obviously." It cocked its head to one side, watching him from far up. Still, it was good to go like this. One last glorious bloody fight, winner takes all, to hell with the outcome. He didn't dare risk a glance toward the bell, hanging hopelessly out of reach. He didn't have the strength to finish this. Caught off guard, his Djinni were unprepared. All he could hope to do was get someone else to get this creep off his ship before he passed out for good.

He took a slow step, sliding sideways along the wall, but before he could set his foot down again the beak flashed in and out once more, a new jagged score mark across his chest. Still, he watched with dull satisfaction as it reared back in pain. He'd used most of his remaining energy in a savage backhand swing right as it came for him, and it looked like it had connected. Now just to avoid bleeding to death for a few more minutes.

* * *

><p>Mia practically skipped down the corridor, bursting with energy. Garet was so sweet to her. Despite knowing the reason for her newfound excitement, she wasn't about to let it go. She grabbed the library doorframe as she passed, catapulting herself in. Felix was right where she'd thought he'd be.<p>

"Hi Felix."

"Mmm." Buried in the maps again. How many maps could he possibly need?

"Felix." She waited until he made eye contact. "Thank you. Thanks for the candle. It was just what I needed."

He just stared at her for a second, and those darn eyes were blank and glassy again. He couldn't even remember.

"What? Oh, um. Yeah, the candle. Um, you're welcome..." But he was still trying to recall.

"Felix. Are you there?"

"Yes," he said, focusing. She decided he was telling the truth. He looked aware for the moment.

"Why did you do this?"

"Do what? Which part of it?"

She shrugged. "All of it. I don't know."

He sighed. "All of it is a story I don't particularly want to tell you right now."

Just about what she'd expected, really. That didn't cushion her disappointment any. His tone and look made it clear she would not be getting anywhere with an interrogation. Despite her good mood and her resolutions, it was incredibly difficult not to lose it with Felix. She gritted her teeth and swallowed her resentment.

"So. What are you working on?"

"My house," he said. He pointed. "In Vale. It's right there. I leave it on the desk while I read, so I can look at it."

"And what are you reading?" she asked again.

"Mythology." It was open to a page she wasn't expecting. Mercury. Her patroness. He noticed that she'd noticed.

"I've heard you mention her before. I wanted to know what kind of creed someone like you believed in."

For just a fraction of a second, halfway through that sentence, she wondered whether Piers knew something after all. Then she had to smile. Only Felix, the part-time incarnation of evil, could make something so sappy sound completely devoid of anything but bare truth. He was gradually growing surly and monosyllabic again.

"Felix, I think you should get out of this while you can."

"And what if I can't? What if it's already too late?"

She shivered, forced it down.

"It's not. It's never too late." Nothing. "Felix, why did you do this to yourself?"

The most horrible expression she had ever seen crept over Felix's face, an image of inhuman, vicious delight. She saw, curiously enough, another expression in the eyes, one of anger, horror and shame, fighting feebly, bubbling up through the cracks in a satanic mask.

"You really want to know? I was weak. I was lonely. I was terribly afraid. I failed. I picked up the sword and said the words and I failed. It was in Yallam, wasn't it? Isn't that right?"

"Shut up!" Felix screamed, a warmer, richer voice. Someone else continued in the same menacing monotone.

"In Yallam, when I found it. I knew right away what it was. The smith tossed it to me, afraid even to keep it in his house. His wife overcharged me for it, and he threw the money out the door too. I knew I should throw it away, but I also knew that I couldn't get all the way north on my own. So instead of trusting my friends and my gods, I turned to another, darker god, betraying all I loved. Again." Strangely enough, considering that frozen, demonic grin, she felt no terror. Only disgust.

"You sick filth."

He continued the piercing eye contact, expression unchanged.

"How dare you make him confess this? How dare you? You don't own him! Not yet!" She took a quick step and grabbed the firm, broad shoulders of Felix, shaking him violently.

"Stop it! Let go of him! You're evil, and I won't let you take him!"

The deranged, cruel smile slowly faded as she shouted. He dropped his head and folded his hands in his lap. She quickly stepped back, giving him room, waiting for a reaction. She swore she heard a quiet "Thank you", almost too low to be heard.

"Sick bastard," Felix muttered after a second, staring hard at the floor. "Hate it when that happens." He said it again, over and over, running the back of one hand across his mouth. "Hate that. I hate it."

At that precise second something quite odd happened to Mia. Something cut through all the rationalizations, the anger, the weariness, the justifications, the intellectual problems. She felt something pierce her. She felt sorry for Felix. Whatever he had done, whoever he was, he didn't deserve this.

They were more-or-less saved from a painful moment by the sudden, sharp ringing of the bell. Felix listened for an intent second and then tore himself violently from the table, with a force that startled Mia. One moment he was huddled into a ball, the next he was flying out the door, leaving a sharp, violent word floating behind him.

She understood his panic. The bell was panicked. It rang violently, furiously, with no rhythm or pattern other than furious haste. Then it stopped ringing. Felix added another bitter swear word to her vocabulary and redoubled his speed.

* * *

><p>Before we go on, I SWEAR that Kairikiani and I are not collaborating in any way and that we actually did come up with nearly identical chapters at the same time. Swear.<p>

R&R pleeze


	10. Peril

Hey all. Surprised to see me so soon, I'm sure.

A shout-out to the admirably devoted **Kairikiani **and **fegs2fan **for reviews of the last chapter. Your constant feedback and encouraging presence are much appreciated. Yes, the Amazing Psynergy-Draining Ship was a canon feature. If I was a punk kid given something like that, I'd fly it until I fell over, so Garet's somewhat shamefaced realization seems logical.

Big thanks to **thorhammer17**, who not only completed a marathon review session of the entire project so far, providing me with some nice insights, but went an additional twenty or thirty miles and recommended my humble work to his readership.

What a pleasant surprise.

In return, I can do no less than to say that I have been an avid follower of Tundra since the day it first appeared here and highly recommend it for fans of this particular pairing, or for anyone interested in some solid GBA writing. Sources indicate it's undergoing revision and will come out twice, nay, four times as spectacular.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Peril

_Just traveling and fighting is a sad life. – Xian villager_

_Even heroes like you can feel fear. – Innkeeper_

She burst out on deck right behind him, blinded by glare. Her eyes cleared and she immediately wished that they hadn't. There was more blood than she had ever seen in her life sprayed on the deck and railings. There was a bundle of clothes so mutilated that she almost missed Piers. Immediately in front of her, drawing her instant attention with an ear-piercing scream, was something out of a nightmare.

From a carapace at least five feet across, supported by massive, wet flippers, a long, muscular neck rose to a beaked head. The eyes were frighteningly intelligent, the beak stained with blood. Jenna and Sheba stood between her and the …turtle…or dragon.

By the round burn marks seared into the creature's neck, Jenna had already made her move; she was flinging herself about recklessly, dodging infuriated return strikes. Sheba, taking advantage of the distraction, was summoning a cyclone that wouldn't be nearly ready in time. Felix's eyes narrowed as he took it all in in a split second. Going from that stare, death was going to be sweet mercy for that thing in a moment.

She prudently stepped out of his field of fire, racing over to Piers as soon as she was clear. Even before she got to him, she was bringing Ply down from far away, finding the place within her where it resided. For the next few seconds, she steadfastly ignored the sounds of full-blown warfare, blocking out crunching wood, agonized screams, and thudding vibrations, pouring all her concentration into the torn form of Piers. There was a life force present in there, she determined at once. He was alive. Nothing left now but to cure as many of these as possible. She began pressing the lips of gaping cuts together, sealing them shut. Those few seconds stretched into a careful eternity.

"Mia!" She lunged forward, taking Piers as far as she could. The monster's head smashed apart the boards she'd been kneeling on, splinters flying around her. Only then did she look up, making eye contact with Felix.

_Thanks. _He nodded and turned back to the fight. Piers would be fine for the moment. She turned to the conflict raging mere feet from her. Jenna was a deadly blur, striking quickly and dancing away. She was a fast and powerful opponent, but she wasn't doing much damage. It seemed the dragon was fire-aligned as well. Felix was a bit slower but much stronger, swinging his sword with both hands.

Mia had already fed them additional power and energy as she'd watched; now she stood reluctantly to bend her will into a seldom-used channel. The ship rocked heavily and groaned. She cracked her knuckles, drawing together as much water as she could comfortably control underneath her feet. The dragon looked her straight in the eye.

Then several things happened at once. She fired off a burst of razor-sharp ice at the dragon, rearing back as her attack met it. Several more flippers and necks burst from the sea and latched onto the ship. And Garet and Isaac came flying into sight, loosing off their own attacks. They were now facing three, maybe four of the dragons, though they were moving too fast for her to get a precise tally.

Felix finished off their original attacker with a vicious strike; she caught movement behind him. Time stopped. She turned dreamily to see a knifelike beak pulling back from Felix. Long glistening strings of blood stretched out into the air, arcing from his shoulder. Her own voice came distorted to her, screaming something. He was still up and swinging, and she tossed a Ply toward him one-handed while freezing the nearest foot of another dragon to the deck.

She flung herself to one side as it came down slowly and came up against Garet's back, using his solidity to get to her feet. An immense explosion of rain and lightning swept across her and vanished; Sheba's hurricane had been too big. Isaac and Jenna flashed before her, Jenna distracting yet another dragon while Isaac finished it. She couldn't see Felix, but she felt the impact of deep earth Psynergy rumbling through her chest.

She was without a blade; her staff was on her bed. She felt Garet loose a fireball and whipped a curtain of water around her back to protect him from a return strike. He straightened up and brought his axe down, the contact jolting her shoulders. Then Felix came through the air, landing on a dragon with his blade in its neck, and it was over.

She shuddered and brushed her forehead clear. It had grown hot and humid out here since this morning. The forward lines of the ship were not quite as graceful as they had once been, but it was all still held together, and thankfully no one else was injured. Felix stood pensively for a second before pushing the dragon over the side.

"I took too long, the blood spread into the water. I'm sorry," he said to no one in particular. Garet laughed and stretched.

"We almost missed it. Haven't seen a good fight in too long." He might have been talking to her, but she wasn't listening; she was mulling over Felix's last words instead. She stepped forward to him, but he brushed off her attempt to heal his shoulder.

"Take care of Piers."

The Lemurian was lying where she'd left him. There were some injuries resisting her, needing a closer look, but he would live yet.

Isaac moved, coming over to see the body at her feet.

"How bad is he?"

"He's not dead. I need some time and space to look at him, though."

Silently Isaac bent down to slip hands underneath his shoulder. Felix grabbed the other side, and Garet picked up his legs.

They got settled inside, depositing the limp body on the table. The scholar was there, blanket wrapped around him, eyes wide, disheveled from head to foot.

"What's going on? Oh my. Oh dear."

She leaned over him and dove in again, exploring the warm, red body before her. She charted the course of veins and arteries, followed the lines of blood to holes in the skin. She probed the mind, gently, dispensing a shot of pure energy to jump-start the healing process and avoid grogginess and aches. Ply was also a painkiller; it would be needed here, and in generous amounts. Those amounts she dispensed, moving with infinite care but reasonable speed. There was no point using quick and dirty battlefield techniques when she could be less sloppy with no danger.

At one point she pushed her way back to consciousness, willing her focus broken. It seemed everyone had left, and the shadows on the wall had moved. It was almost noon. Felix and all the others had disappeared somewhere. Sheba was in the corner, curled up in a chair, fast asleep. She must've been nervous, since she'd summoned a hurricane much larger than she could possibly handle back on deck. It had worn her out. Mia smiled fondly.

Then the smile faded, and she turned back to Piers and wiped her forehead with the back of one hand. Just what was this, anyway? There was something virulent in there, resisting her best efforts to heal it. It wasn't even really resistance…it was more like her healing…didn't apply. It just slipped to the side, out of her reach.

"What the heck?" she mumbled.

"What?"

She jumped. The scholar was standing right there. She'd missed him somehow. He looked incredibly eager and enough like a helpless, somewhat senile old man that she bit back the sharp comment burning her tongue.

"I…uh. There's something in here that I just can't seem to heal. I think he's been poisoned, but I can't identify it."

"You have to know what it is to heal it?"

"Uh, yeah. Something like that," she said, surprised at his perceptivity. Presented with a task, he cast old age aside like a cloak.

"Well, I'm sure there's something in the library! Let me have a look! Be right back!" And then he was gone. She turned back to Piers and shook her head, frowning. Kraken? Kray…?

Someone burst in, trying to be gentle with the door but failing. At the same time, K-whatever it was came back up, his puppy eyes peeking over a daunting pile of ancient books.

"How is he?"

It was Felix. He was in bad shape, and this was a new one.

"Ah. Felix…" the scholar said, noticing the same problem as her. Felix was bending over the body, inspecting one of the scars she hadn't been able to heal.

"Poison. Looks like poison." Felix straightened up, actually running to the cabinet on the wall and throwing the doors open. "Antidote, antidote… gods-DAMMIT where are they…" As she watched his unusual antics, she figured it out. He had lost self-control again. She wasn't willing to call it panic, but he was filled with a manic, tense energy, unable to sit still or think straight. She spoke soothingly.

"Felix…Felix…"

The scholar chimed in.

"Ah…Felix…"

He spun.

"What?"

"Um, I think I can take care of this without an antidote, Felix?"

"You can? …Really?" He took a deep breath. "…'Cause I think we're out. Okay." And he was gone. He was trying his level best to act normally, but the feverish energy under his skin was out of his control. He sounded, looked, and acted very nervous, and very guilty. She made a mental note to check up on him the second she was done with this, and went back to K-something. He was watching her tensely.

"Ah. It's Kraden, my dear."

She smiled, embarrassed.

"Oh. Heh. Thanks. Mia."

He nodded, and cracked open the top cover, on a level with his chin.

"Now then, this is a natural science journal, or appears to be. Someone has carefully documented all manner of creatures. With luck, we shall find what we are looking for."

She didn't really have the heart to explain to him that that wasn't quite how it worked, so she fed a trickle of energy into Piers while Kraden researched furiously. It couldn't hurt.

"So what did it look like?"

"And here we are, I think. Does this look like it?" He passed her the third or fourth of his volumes, pointing to an ink illustration. She nodded firmly, handed it back.

"Yes. That's the one. What does it say?"

He hesitated.

"Well, there's actually no text in this book. At least, not in any language I understand. There's some strange runes here, though." He showed her the page again, pointing to a new spot. She got the strangest feeling, looking at them. They were no idle scrawls, but elegant, complex diagrams. Each had the exterior shape of a circle, but was distinguished inside by a unique pattern of exact curves and bold lines. They seemed written by a learned hand, an experienced hand… and suddenly, they made sense to her.

This had been done by another healer. She still couldn't say what they represented, but they were the same kind of paths and twists that she followed through the mind and body to trace injuries. She was certain. Without looking away from the page, she laid one hand on Piers and dove in once more. No rational decision was to be allowed, only the faint trail of intuition. She could break it now, somehow. This labyrinth was a map that was going to lead her to the gate.

"You have something?"

She nodded, unwilling to break concentration, and pushed farther in.

Another eternity later, she took her hand off, bathed in sweat. Now she was wholly done, but he wasn't going to be up for a while. He'd been pushed too close to death for a quick recovery. Kraden was smiling gently, still holding the book open for her.

"Thank you, Kraden. I got it all this time."

He came to attention.

"Yes, well…you're welcome. I don't know what you did, but we …would be lost without him. Thank you." She smiled and nodded, and stepped out into the sunlight.

That had been entirely too darned close. She blew out a long breath. It was hard, every time, to realize all over again how death hovered so close. For all their magical powers, they could slip up at any time. Just ten more seconds, and Piers would have been outside her grasp. She'd saved him this time, though, and that- that was all that mattered.

Gradually she became aware that Jenna was standing next to her. The redhead was studying her quietly, something indefinable in her gaze. She looked like she was trying to remember the name of an old friend.

"Hi, Jenna," Mia said quietly.

"Hi," she replied. "How is he?"

"He's doing well," Mia said. "He was poisoned, but I think I got it all out."

Jenna grimaced.

"Poison. Felix has been poisoned so many times it's not funny. Piers too, come to think of it. They always have to go first, and they get stung, bitten, scratched, cut. Then they swell up and turn green. I'm glad Felix takes care of me, but I wish he wouldn't get beaten up so much."

Mia chuckled, and Jenna smiled.

"That happened to us, mostly in the forest," she said. Bad memories of flying, screeching woodland creatures with stained teeth still haunted her sometimes.

From there the conversation turned to the various places they'd been. Mia plunged eagerly into a recounting of their various adventures. This was the part she loved remembering – the sheer adventure of the unexpected. Jenna, for her turn, was equally willing to run through a long list of familiar and unfamiliar names and descriptions – Mikasalla, Garoh, Champa, Lemuria – but did so with an affected world-weariness and sarcastic wit that Mia found hilarious. Then Jenna brought up something that made her perk up. She'd been talking about some place called Ankohl, a vast, time-worn ruin deep in the forest.

"That place was not really my favorite, but Felix loved it. He had such a great time playing in the sands, sometimes I feel we should have just left him there."

That didn't sound like the Felix she knew.

"When was that?" Mia asked, interested in following this clue.

"Right before we went to …Lemuria, actually," Jenna said. Mia frowned. There was a careful hole cut in that explanation, and she probed it.

"Where's Yallam?"

This had an effect she was not quite expecting. Jenna flinched as if Mia had struck her.

"It's, uh, it's in Osenia," she said casually.

Mia paused. How far was she willing to push this? What was waiting for her at the end of this road?

"Jenna… what happened to Felix?"

Jenna sighed and slumped onto the rail. Her scarlet hair fell down across her eyes, obscuring any expression. After a second she whispered.

"I can't tell you …It's not my story to tell."

Another dead end. It seemed the only way to find out what was going on was going to be through Felix himself, and she knew she wasn't quite ready to handle that yet. So instead she just let the breeze ruffle her hair. It was a beautiful day, and something told her she didn't have too many of those left. The sea stretched to touch the sky in every direction she looked.

The door creaked open behind her.

"Uh, Mia?"

"Yeah. Sheba?"

The tiny blonde had her head poked out the door, holding it open with one hand.

"Isaac wants everybody to come in here."

"Ok. Coming." She pushed off the rail, Jenna standing and following without a word.

Inside, the whole group was indeed clustered in chairs and benches, with Piers' unconscious form as a centerpiece. Isaac cleared his throat as she took a seat. Unfortunately, he didn't get the chance to begin the somber council; Felix poked his head in through the door and stepped in as they turned to him.

"Well. I was just going to find all of you," he said. He looked healthier than he had that morning, and his voice was even and normal. "Um, I just wanted to say…" He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry for my behavior these last few days. I'm not interested in fighting with any of you. I apologize."

Isaac slowly nodded, locking gazes with Felix for a long second.

"Okay, Felix. I accept your apology."

And Felix left.

Isaac looked around, making eye contact with each of them individually.

"Anyone consider that good enough?"

No one raised a hand or moved.

"I thought as much. Now." He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "I've had enough of this. I don't pretend to know what's going on around here, but I want some answers. I want to know what happened to my friend." There were nods, a consensus. Kraden leaned forward, clearly anxious to see action taken that he could not initiate.

For some reason, they were waiting for her.

"Um." What was she supposed to say? Isaac helped her.

"Mia. I don't mean anything by this, but Ivan did tell us about last night."

Ivan cringed.

"Oh. Oh that. Well, uh. I don't know."

Now it was Isaac's turn to lean forward, ragged desperation in his voice.

"Mia. He was my friend. You're the only one he'll talk to. I don't know what to do."

She looked around the circle, all eyes on her. Sheba, Jenna, Isaac, Ivan, Kraden, Garet.

"Isaac," she said, choking on a sad laugh, "you don't have to beg me. I've already made up my mind to help him. I just don't…I don't know what to do any more than you do."

He nodded in understanding.

"Well, we've got to do something. Whatever you can, Mia. I really appreciate it." He leaned back. "If you don't mind my asking…what is it, anyway?"

It was Jenna that spoke up, startling all of them.

"It's a curse." She was looking intently at the floor. "It's a curse, Isaac."

"A curse?" Garet said. "Great. Remember that cursed shield, that one time? Those things are scary." He rubbed his hand at the memory.

"So it's some sort of object?" Isaac asked. But Jenna stayed silent, unwilling to risk any more. Mia felt for her, understood her position, but Felix had to have help. She spoke up.

"It's his sword." Jenna shot a look at her, and she continued quickly. "He told me himself." She didn't want to offend anyone, but it couldn't be helped. Jenna seemed to understand, though, as when she next spoke she didn't seem resentful.

"A priest can get rid of it. Right?"

"Yes," Garet said.

"But he won't let us take him to one," Sheba put in. "That won't work."

"I don't think a priest can help him with everything, anyway," Mia said. "It goes deeper than that." She moved quickly, sensing a dejected comment from Isaac.

"But." He looked up. She continued. "But, I think…if we can get him to get rid of the curse… then there'll be something left of him still. And maybe he'll come around. I can't talk him into doing it; he has to do it on his own." Another understanding nod.

"Isaac…" she said pleadingly. "Don't look at me like that. I'll do my best. But that's all I can promise."

He gave her a soft smile.

"I know, Mia. I know. I can't ask any more of you than that. Anything you need, let me know."

She smiled back and stood, smoothing out her dress.

Felix was in the wheelhouse, brown hands gripping the big spokes, scowling at nothing in particular.

"Is Piers all right?" He fired off the question instantly, still taut as a whip.

"Yes, Felix. He'll be fine. He's sleeping it off."

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"All right."

She grinned, a crooked smile of pity.

"Felix… there was nothing you could do about that. It wasn't your fault."

"Mia. I know you're trying to make me feel better – but it's all my fault. All of this." He let go of the wheel with one hand to make an all-encompassing sweep of the horizon. "If I hadn't ever touched-"

"Felix, I don't understand. If you don't want it, and you understand what it's doing to you, why don't you get rid of it? Why do you let it?"

He made a derisive noise. "I'm not talking about the sword, Mia."

She thought about that. What could she say to that? 'Yeah, you're right, stew in your guilt for all I care?'

"Felix. I don't think you understand how far your sister and your friends are willing to go for you."

"And you're not my friend?" He had this smile on his face that said "If I were you, no". She took a deep breath.

"No, Felix. You still scare me a little bit, and there's something in you that you're not willing to fight yet. But your friends asked me to talk to you and so I'm doing it."

He got as far as taking in breath, about to make a sharp, cynical retort, she could just feel it, and then he cast his eyes down and looked away. They stayed for a second there in the wheelhouse, shadows playing on the floor. She noticed the near absence of heat, which was almost stifling out on deck.

"I was so worried about Piers," he finally said. "I just met him almost a year ago, but he's already like a brother to me."

She nodded.

"I can't let him die. I can't let any of you die. Just one wrong move…and if he was…gone, I…I don't think I could take it." He took a breath. "I just panicked." He looked for a second as if he desperately wanted to say more, but he took control of himself.

"I- I won't bother you with all this. I can handle it. I'll get us to Prox."

She sighed.

"Felix, let me help you."

"Hah. Why on earth would I ask you for help? I barely know you. …But I know what you mean. There's one thing you can do for me," he said. She waited.

"Keep Piers alive."

She nodded, and stepped back onto the deck. Before she got all the way out, though, she turned back.

"That's what you meant, isn't it. You couldn't move fast enough to deal with it by yourself. You got the rest of us involved." She shook her head slowly. "Felix… you can't do anything about that." He didn't respond.

Isaac was watching the coast slide by, shading his eyes from the sun. Garet stood by his shoulder, not speaking. Mia walked over.

"Hey."

"Hey, Mia," he said tiredly, not turning. Garet nodded at her.

"So," she said, searching for a topic. "Do…you…feel like our talk helped at all?"

He turned at that.

"Mia… What is forgiveness, anyway?"

She smiled wryly.

"Why am I the authority on these things now? I don't know."

"Well, I said…the willingness to let go," Garet said, embarrassed. "But he wouldn't buy it."

"Sounds about right to me," she said.

"But some things you can't just let go of," Isaac said, slumping backwards against the railing. "Some things cut you so deep that they change you forever. You become a different person, even if you don't want to."

She looked to Garet.

"And do you feel this way too?"

He shrugged.

"Eh. A little bit. I didn't take it as hard as he did. I dunno, maybe I'm not paying enough attention."

"Don't accuse yourself, Garet, there's enough of that already. Isaac, what do you want me to say? I know this hurts."

"What's left?" he asked. "Just pretend it never happened? I don't want to just be numb…" He forced himself to smile, putting his problems neatly away. "It sucks being in charge, you know that?"

"And just who are you in charge of?" she said teasingly.

"Well, I'm not about to dump it all on Felix's shoulders. He's preoccupied enough as it is. I know there's not much to do, but I still worry."

She laughed at that.

"So you're going to split up the worrying with Felix and take the bigger half?"

Garet chuckled. Isaac cracked a real smile this time.

"Hah, it does sound a little silly. I'm just used to the responsibility and not being able to do anything is killing me."

She hugged him.

"Isaac, you're…you're so funny." 'Funny' was not the word she wanted to use. 'Responsible', 'nice', those were at the same time more as well as less appropriate. Ah well.

"C'mon. Since you're dying to do something, let's go watch Piers sleep." She took them both by a hand and dragged them in. "We can play cards or something."

That night the rain began. They were four rounds into a game of cross hearts, and she was trailing Isaac by five. Piers was tumbled in a blanket by her side, six cards scattered across his gently rising and falling chest; he was done for the night. She carefully swept them off into her hand and slipped them under the deck.

"So. Raise ten and two. Who's next?" She already knew that it was Garet's turn, but he wasn't paying attention.

"Hear that?"

She half-turned to see where he was looking, up into one corner of the room.  
>"Uh, no."<p>

Sheba, cross-legged next to her, shook her head.

"I don't hear it either. What is it?"

Almost as the words left her mouth Mia caught it, a slowly swelling rush of wind.

"Is that Ivan's, Sheba?"

She shook her head.  
>"Nope. Not mine. Not his." Then something seemed to hit her with physical force. "Ugh. It's a storm. A…a really big storm."<p>

Then the rain came, lashing down on the roof. It was sudden and forceful enough that all of them recoiled. Mia recovered first, rearranging her hand.

"Well. Now we can play for real." They played for a second. Then Isaac looked up guiltily.

"Crap. Felix's out in this."

Mia's eyes flew open.

"Oh no. I forgot all about him. Is anyone else out there?"

"No. Everyone else is in bed. Shoot."

They all clambered to their feet, mentally preparing themselves for outside.

The rain was tropical, torrential. Mia managed, using both hands, to congeal some into a shield over their heads, but it was drummed on enough that she had to fight to hold it. They ran for the wheelhouse, her and Garet, trying to keep balance on the slippery deck. Felix was inside. His outer garments were soaked, but he had on so many of his customary layers that she suddenly doubted he was even wet.

"Hey. Enjoying the weather?" he said, blowing wet strands of hair out of his eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I know where I'm going."

Mia rolled her eyes.

"We know, Felix; do you want anything?"

He considered.

"Sure. A shot of something from Piers' collection. Bring the bottle."

"Um, are you sure that-"

"Ok. Anything in particular?" Garet interjected.

"Whatever looks good," he said, and turned back to staring into the sheets of water.

The card game was hard to get back into. They sat on the floor by the light from Garet's foot, but no one's mind was really in it at first. Felix had accepted the bottle with the only pathetic attempt at gratitude he could muster; but he took it in good grace, and not hungrily as if he needed it. She worried about him, dryly knowing what Isaac had been talking about earlier. He was almost certainly poisoned, very definitely in pain and in no shape for a sleepless night in a storm like this, and quite possibly nearing the edge of a nervous breakdown.

She ruffled the top edges of her cards with one finger, trying to decide what to do. He'd resolutely refused any and all offers of assistance, and she was well aware that he hadn't changed his mind in the intervening five minutes. Going outside would accomplish nothing, but sitting here and playing cards just felt wrong. She bit it back and tossed out a card. As much as she hated to admit it, there was nothing she could do.

The rain rolled.

* * *

><p>The action scene at the beginning of this chapter was by far the most fun I've had in a long, long time, and I owe its greatly lengthened and improved present state to thorhammer17 as well. Cheers mate.<p>

There are three or four changes in scene in this chapter. Though I've been doing them the same way this whole time, if I recall correctly, they seem awfully abrupt and confusing to me now. If you'd like a line break please let me know.

I feel profoundly ambivalent toward this chapter, especially the middle section. However, I finally got around to introducing Kraden, whose personality is quite fun, and the rainstorm that will generate most of the important plot events of the last third of this story is finally here. This has been a long, tough haul at points, and it's taught me a lot about persistence, but I've never had quite this much fun or felt quite as in control of my authorial ability. Thanks to all who are enjoying this journey with me.

Reviews are much appreciated.


	11. Storm

Hey, guess who's not dead after all?

Thanks to **Thorhammer17 **and** fegs2fan** for the reviews.

I took a break from this for a long while, suffering from Creative Dryness Disorder. The refreshed me sat down and banged this out. I really quite like this chapter, all in all.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Storm

_A terrible power_.  
><em>- Great Healer of Vale<em>

_If you fail, you may lose more than just your pride.  
>– Master Poi<em>

The next morning, if it could be called that, improved nothing. Dawn never came, replaced by a mere lightening; they stared out now into grey instead of black. By mutual unspoken agreement, the card players had all tried to find fitful sleep in the common room, close to the door, where they could easily reach Felix if he needed them.

"I'm going to risk it, I think," she said through a mouthful of bread, staring into the distant, invisible heart of the storm. "It's not going to get any better any time soon." Isaac agreed.

"Wait for me," Garet said. "…I hope he's okay."

The rain had not slackened one bit, and Mia found herself just as challenged by it. At least now she could see somewhat. The wheelhouse was not quite visible a short distance away.

* * *

><p>The first inkling of what lay ahead was the faintly lingering thread of blood trailing off the side of the ship. More of the story lay in the battered edge of the door, forced inward. Inside Felix was sprawled on the floor, his back propped against the wall. His sword lay on the ground within his reach, next to an empty bottle. His side was worse than she remembered, a punctured mess.<p>

"Just…sat down for a second. Getting back up," he muttered, obviously not even believing himself.

"Felix, what happened? When was this?"

"Ah. It's nothing." She stared him down. "…Sometime last night a couple of smaller guys broke in here to finish me off. Not dragons, something else. I got them though. I steered fine. Just a few hours ago I dropped the anchor. Then I came back in here."

"Felix, you need to let me heal you."

He shook his head stubbornly.

"No, what I need to do is get up and look at a map. …In a minute."

"Felix, you're in no shape to do anything," she said. "You can't even stand."

He started out to prove her wrong, got about halfway up by pushing his back into the boards, and then slumped down again.

"Why'd you drop the anchor?" Isaac asked.

"Because he knew he couldn't steer anymore," Mia said, returning Felix's defiant stare. He ended up staying silent.

"Well, I guess you'll have to do it, Isaac. Felix, I'm going to work the poison out of you, and then you're going to bed."

"I'm staying here. I know where to go."

She didn't press the point. The others stood around in a circle while she knelt, carefully drawing out the malignant spots in Felix's arm and side. He'd already fused some of the physical wounds shut, with a clumsy and scarring technique, so she used the open ones to take out the venom before sealing them. The scars were there for good. Standing back, she noticed that he had silently locked eyes with Isaac. Finally Felix tossed his head toward the wheel, seeming to concede defeat, and stared at the floor. Isaac stepped over and wrapped his fingers around the spokes.

"See the needle?"

"Y-yeah. I see it."

She looked as well. There was a bowl full of not-quite-water on the wheel's pedestal, with a long pointed sliver of metal floating inside.

"Keep the point… aimed at the lower right corner of the window," Felix said with effort. Isaac complied, swinging them around. The rain smashed unabated on the thatch above them.

"Garet, you need to go raise the anchor. Out at the bow. Turn the crank." Garet left quickly, striking his hands together. He disappeared in a cloud of steam. A minute passed, then another. A low vibration reached them, the faint rattle of a chain, and they were floating loose again.

"The hurricane is running inland toward Vale, along the north coast of Contigo. You have to fight your way out of the channel, and then you can run in front of the storm up the coast. I thought we'd be safer in the bays, but Hesperia's not blocking the force of the waves at all."

Isaac nodded firmly, flexing his bare fingers on the wheel.

"Got it."

Garet came back in, steaming a few last drops of water off his clothes.

"Geez. We couldn't try to fly out of this, by any chance?"

"No, we can't," Felix said. "We'd wreck it on the mountains or the cliffs, or end up stranded miles inland."

She had to admire his obstinacy. He'd grudgingly made the concession of telling them how to keep from getting killed, since that was necessary, but was unwilling to further acknowledge his helplessness. It wasn't good enough.

"Felix, I think this is good for you," she said as lightly as she could manage. The possibility that he might toss an earthquake at her was still real, after all. But nothing happened. He just dropped his head back against the wood and closed his eyes. Isaac breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

"How's Piers?" Felix mumbled. "Help Piers." She left, feeling a little guilt.

* * *

><p>Piers was worse off than she'd originally thought. There was nothing externally wrong with him, but he was not convalescing, not healing. The poison had gone deeper than she could follow, though she'd drawn it all out. They'd hit him too hard too fast. As she watched him sleep quietly, pale and drawn, the haunting suspicion that she'd been a second late after all grew on her.<p>

"He needs a priest, I think," Sheba said from behind her. She was curled up on the couch, arms around her knees. Mia blew out a disappointed breath.

"I think you're right. I thought I had him safe, though."

Sheba looked up at her earnestly.

"It's not your fault, Mia. Really."

She began to laugh, finding tired amusement in trifles. "Hahaha. I'm sorry. It's-heh-hard to explain why that's so funny. I've heard everyone blame themselves for everything but the bad weather."

Sheba looked up, wide-eyed.

"Mia, Mia… I…I'm so sorry about this rain! I messed it up! Forgive me," she finished melodramatically, unable to keep a straight face any longer. Mia laughed harder. "No, seriously, Mia, I'm not an issue," she breezily continued. "I just blame everyone else for my problems!"

"Oh, stop it." She sat down, wiping a tear or two from her eyes.

"Ha ha, you two." That was Garet from the door. "But do you really believe that, or not?"

Mia turned to face him.

"Garet, come on. We've just got to make the best of a terrible situation. We didn't get this far by pinning blame for everything!"

"…True, I guess," he admitted. She pushed on, intent on finishing this once and for all.

"Felix made his own choices. You can't do anything about that – this is the first time you've seen him in years, remember?"

He smiled himself.

"Geez, I feel like such a wuss. I'm sorry for complaining so much, Mia. We're all just falling apart, aren't we?"

She nodded. Couldn't disagree with that, unfortunately.

"Stop apologizing, Garet, or I'll hit you."

He smiled again, warmer, with something more of his old strength.

"Only a few miles left. We'll make it."

Sheba cleared her throat.

"We haven't met officially. Sheba."

Garet enveloped her tiny hand in his broad one, amused.

"Garet. Pleasure."

"So why'd you come back in, Garet?" Mia asked.

"Oh, yeah. Well, I wanted to check on this guy. Piers is a good fella," he said. He averted his gaze. "And, uh, I was gonna get some…stuff. Do you, uh, know where they keep blankets and stuff around here?"

"For Felix?" Sheba asked cutely. "Aww, you're such a sweetheart." She jumped to the floor and took his hand. "C'mon, I'll show you." A flushing Garet was led away. Mia ducked back outside, grinning.

* * *

><p>The rain smashed down, waves crashing and rolling above the level of the deck. The ship, big as it was, tossed and fell like straw. She hated to admit it, but she enjoyed the display, the pure power on parade. Nature was out to impress, and it impressed her. The water all around, above, below, to her sides, set something in her blood singing. She let her shield dissipate, quickly getting soaked to the skin. Rain was always soothing, washing her pains and cares away; now it beat into her with naked force, stripping off anxiety and sorrow with a broad scalpel. She looked up into the sky and let herself slip away.<p>

These last few days had been quick and hard, a blur of activity. She avoided thinking about her part in fighting off their would-be attackers. Combat worried her. It felt so good. She could stretch out her hand and run a finger along the power that lay just outside her grasp, could know control, domination, absolute force. She could command, and the sea would obey.

She was wise enough to know danger in the siren's song, and the times when she was forced to use her abilities for something she considered ambiguously moral frightened her. Isaac was a good person at heart. So was Garet. She knew that; and yet they engaged in combat with no obvious qualms. Garet positively enjoyed the experience. Nevertheless, she'd never summoned the courage to ask them about it. It was something that bothered her alone; no point in saddling the others with it if they had no solution.

These last few days had slapped her hard with a cold reality. Felix enjoyed combat too. He was terrifyingly good at it, clearly able to eliminate most opponents with relative ease by himself. But she was no longer safe in her superiority to his brokenness, no longer able to condemn and thus ignore him. The central mystery of Felix remained. No one save the gods and the water knew why he had done anything from the day he died to the day she stepped on the ship.

But pieces of the truth were beginning to strike her, breaking holes in the anger she still felt. Somehow she knew with an early-morning honesty that Felix was just another Isaac condemned by circumstances she didn't yet know. Had Fate rolled the dice differently the same thing could have happened to any of them. She hadn't given him enough credit, giving herself far too much. For the infection had spread. The rain ran down her forehead and off her upturned chin.

She leaned back against the wall of the wheelhouse, unwilling to go in just yet.

"Are we all so broken?" she muttered, enjoying the poetic truth of it. "Are we all hiding something like this, down inside?" A sobering thought. Who knew what the Sanctum seal had cracked open? Who knew where its disturbed ghosts had burrowed? She shook a fist at the bitter heavens.

"We'll make it there yet," she said. "We'll get there. …To hell with you." She smiled.

* * *

><p>A minute later, Isaac broke the silence unexpectedly. She could hear him all too clearly over the rain, through the wall.<p>

"Felix."

"Uh."

"…Don't hurt her." She winced.

"The hell are you talking about?" Felix snarled, unmistakably conveying that he knew exactly what they were talking about. They both fell silent again.

Mia flushed and dropped her head instinctively, rain running down into her eyes. She flipped wet strings of hair out of her vision, wiping her face. There was no way he really felt like that. No possible way. He had enough on his mind to occupy three or four other people, and she barely knew him. And yet Piers' teasing hint kept sneaking into her mind.

…If someone could clean the shadows and cobwebs out of his soul, he'd be kinda …cute. Handsome, even. In a dark way. She blushed again, cursing. She wished her mind would shut up.

...He was kinda nice. When he was by himself and let his ridiculously overprotective guard down, she'd surprised him being pretty considerate.

Of course, he was also half-demon. And that was that, she said neatly. No more of this nonsense.

* * *

><p>Right as she turned and put her hand on the door to the wheelhouse, the floor gave a shuddering crack under her feet.<p>

"Isaac. Go find out what that was." Implied reluctance. Felix spoke levelly.

"I got it, Isaac. I can handle it until you get back."

The door pulled away from her, bringing her face to face with a surprised Isaac.

"Uh. Hi Mia."

"Hi," she said. "I was enjoying the rain." He pushed past her.

"Mia," Felix called through the fast-closing door. She caught it and stuck her head inside, fighting down embarrassment.

"What?"

"I think he might need your help." He seemed entirely unconcerned by what she'd overheard, making normal eye contact as he reached for the wheel.

"Okay." She pulled the door shut and took off.

* * *

><p>She caught up with Isaac inside, who was listening to Piers, speaking quickly from his bed on the floor. She'd never seen him look so abjectly terrified as now, rapping out short syllables that precisely identified the location and extent of the damage. There was a hole in his ship, in his considered opinion. Some of the timbers in the prow, weakened from dragons beating on them, had given way. Tossing on the sea like this…<p>

"We could sink any second now," he said, pale as Death. Isaac took off running for the stairs.

On the lowest step above the water, she paused to summon what energy she had. In that brief interlude the water swallowed her feet. Mia jumped in, pushing back against it with all her might. She sloshed through waist-deep sea, tripping over the occasional crate or barrel. Isaac followed in her footsteps. They reached the hole, a tangled wreck of splinters and eddies. She paused for a second, then looked back, pointing forward.

"Isaac, make a hole up there please."

He did as requested, drawing the wood downward and out. While she shoveled the ocean back out where it belonged, he began melding the broken timbers seamlessly into one, stronger than they were originally.

She worked furiously, curbing the occasional wave slapping into the side. For several minutes, nothing existed save the swirling pools and eddies of dark liquid, nothing had ever existed save the salt smell of the sea. Piers was helping as best he could – she felt a faint trickle of calming energy from him, fighting off the raging storm outside, but it wasn't much. She mostly worked by herself, therefore, until the water was no higher than her ankles. Isaac had finished long ago, and was waiting for her to mop up so he could seal the last crack. The last few scoops of water flew out, the chink of light snapped shut, and they slumped to the floor.

"Whoo," Isaac breathed. She agreed. The hold was dark and – strangely - growing comfortingly warm after the icy chill of above. She stretched weary arms. Just another crisis in an endless series of near-disasters.

"So," she said. "How's Jenna doing?" He turned in astonishment, catching the twinkle in her eye.

"What? How did you know?"

"Come on, Isaac. A girl just knows these things."

"I, uh. She's okay, I guess." She curled up, wanting more.

"I've liked her ever since we were kids, you know? It's just always been on my mind. All this time, not knowing if she was okay. Just having her here…" he trailed off blissfully. She laughed.

"You're so different." Actually, now that she saw them together she noticed how they fit.

"I know, right? She's so…so passionate, so fiery. I'm not like that at all." He turned to her.

* * *

><p>Something about the smile she greeted him with betrayed her. She couldn't tell what she'd let slip, but there was shock and horror in his face, changing her own mirth and wistfulness into nervous fear. Two years' worth of unread subtext and missed understanding, sinking in in this moment.<p>

"I…wait…you. Mia. I'm so sorry. I had no idea…"

"Sorry about what?" she asked, her face perfectly composed. He hesitated, then looked away.

"N-nothing, I guess."

A minute later she felt fingers curling around hers. She'd waited two years for that sensation, and now it meant nothing.

"Mia. Thank you. Thanks for…for everything."

"Isaac…" Two years of climbing mountains. Two years of the best life she'd ever known. She got up and walked out, unable to thank him properly in return, afraid she might start crying again.

* * *

><p>Piers had passed out again, which was a good sign in its own way; as long as there was danger he wouldn't have fallen asleep. He lay tangled in his blankets, peace stamped on his features. Sheba had been right; they needed to get him to someone who could renew his life energy. Dammit. She chewed her lip absently. How far to a priest? She hadn't thought to ask. She extended her arm and dropped a bit more Ply into the limp body at her feet, and turned away. Jenna was letting herself through the kitchen door at the same time.<p>

"Oh. Hi, Mia. How is he?"

"Fine. He needs to be revived though. I can't do it."

"Hm. I don't know where we are," Jenna said thoughtfully.

"Me neither. I was actually on my way to go ask."

"Oh," Jenna said, moving aside. "In that case."

"No, no," Mia laughed. "It can wait. He's sleeping like a baby, and I think a rest is good for him. We all could use one."

"Heh, I'll say. Not like it'll make a difference in this weather, anyway." The redhead shot a glare at the door and shuddered. "Ugh."

"Aw, l love the rain."

"Hate it. Can't stand the stuff." She paused. "You know, it's kinda nice in one way."

"What's that?" Mia asked.

"We're all forced not to avoid each other now. I actually got to talk to Garet for once. Haven't seen him in two-three years."

"So you felt it too, huh?"

"Are you kidding?" Jenna said. "We've been circling around on this boat like wolves. I just wanted to talk to my friends again, and it seems I've made some new ones. Your friend Ivan reminds me of Piers in his serious moods."

"Hey, where is he anyway?"

Jenna shrugged.

"I think he spends most of his time atop that tower thing. Even in this nasty mess. Lightning isn't gonna hurt _him._"

Mia looked at Jenna, saw her careful, fox-like face, her quick, flame-like vivacity. Two years…but not two years wasted. She smiled inwardly and left.

* * *

><p>Ivan was not atop the tower, which relieved Mia. She had not really been prepared to ascend the slick rungs, with lighting flaring sullenly overhead. He had apparently just come down, and was standing at the base of the ladder, his hair slick and his clothes dripping wet.<p>

"Ivan? Are you okay?"

He didn't respond immediately, and when he finally did he confirmed her sense that something was wrong.

"I know what that cloud is." He fell silent. It took her a second to remember what he was talking about. The cloud… the cloud he'd said he felt over the ship. Ivan was in bad shape. He was looking glassily into the sky, eyes unfocused, breathing heavily. Whatever this was, he didn't want to say it, and she didn't particularly want to hear it. But something made her just go through with it. No sense in delaying.

"...Well? What is it?"

Finally he worked up the obvious nerve to say whatever it was.

"He-he's mourned with Acheron. Her tears have fallen from his eyes."

She felt dawning horror, not knowing what the words meant but sensing their import. He seemed lost still, caught alone in a vision. "He walks with Death, Mia. He's caught up in some terrible destiny, a punishment for him alone. I looked into his eyes and I know for sure that something... I have the horrible premonition of something, something..." He swallowed. "There will be a dragon. He will feel pride in himself, a small repayment, a good deed that finally went as he'd planned. Salvation from his fingers, and no longer destruction. Then the dragon will come, and I fear he will plunge into a darkness from which there is no return." He trailed off, went quiet. The ocean returned, more sinister than before.

The thunder roared, making her flinch, but Ivan didn't move. Mia shivered, rain running down her shoulders. Ivan had gone into these trances a few times before, and they always came true. He had trembled and gone pale on the climb up the Jupiter Lighthouse, nearly falling down the stairs. Garet had had to catch him, support his limp weight. He hadn't spoken to her of what he'd seen that time, but afterwards she knew the reflection of the house in Contigo in his eyes. She thought again of Felix, her mind turning this time to the lighthouse aerie. How had she let herself forget about that? Why didn't the two halves of his personality mesh together? Their silence was broken by a quiet chuckle. It was one of the saddest things Mia had ever heard. Felix's laughter would make anyone despair. She turned to see him hanging from the doorway of the wheelhouse.

"Acheron," he stated, coming out of the doorway where he'd eavesdropped for who knew how long. "The woman whose family was torn from her, who cursed the gods... So you are a seer, Ivan. I thought I felt it in you." Ivan nodded dumbly. "You have seen the Tears of Blood. Tell me, what else have you seen?"

Ivan shuddered and moaned quietly, his fright evident on his face. Rain ran off his face and down his neck.

"Why did you do it, Felix?" he whispered. "You cannot save yourself now. The gods must have their revenge." Felix laughed again, and again it was a sound like the fluttering wings of the Angel of Death.

"Do you think I didn't know what I brought on myself when I broke the seal? I held the chisel, Ivan, held it steady to the blows of the hammer and willed the stone to crack."

Mia listened to the sacrilegious words with numb terror, her gut twisting into knots. How could he say these things without being stricken from the earth? But he was leaning forward intently. Ivan shrank back, his self-control lost completely.

"I'm sorry to do this to you, but I need to know. What else did you see?"

"Felix, no... surely there must be a way out... to save the world? Isn't that a good enough reason? Perhaps you will be spared..."

"No. I didn't do it to save the world. I'm not so high-minded as that, Ivan."

"Then why did you do it?" A new voice rang out stridently. Isaac stood behind the three, eyes blazing. Felix straightened up slowly from where he'd been leaning over Ivan. "I'm not going to let you push my friends around; I don't care how sorry you are!"

Again Felix played dumb, refusing to react. In the lull that followed Ivan spoke, half to himself, seemingly unaware of the outside world.

"Don't trust her, Felix, she's a witch."

Felix whirled back, a desperate intensity showing through in every line of his body, a despair he was trying hard to hide.

"With enemies like mine, Ivan, I will shelter wherever I can."

"You have enemies all right, Felix! Answer my question!" Isaac shouted, misunderstanding Felix's remark. Ivan and Felix both ignored him, staying locked in an intent visual fencing.

"Acheron's grief is no shelter, Felix, but a lure to ruin."

"I am ruined anyway. I needed a way to deal with the problems I already had. Where else could I turn? How could I stay together? She gives me a brief respite from the demons chasing me, gives me strength to face each day."

"She fills your veins with poison!" Ivan shouted in despair. "Run, Felix, run while you still can! You know it is the only way to escape!"

Felix stiffened, suddenly filled with an ancient sadness.

"I know," he said. "I know. But the end is near, and I can't let go now."

"You can – if you really want to," Ivan murmured softly.

"Maybe I could, maybe not." With that Felix faded and disappeared into the depths of the wheelhouse, closing the door gently behind him.

"What the heck was that?" Isaac said in bewilderment. Ivan turned to him. Mia was seriously beginning to worry about him; he'd never stayed in a trance state this long. His eyes were completely filmed over and unfocused, his expression slack and dreamy.

"There is a story told about a woman named Acheron, who lived before the Great Seal. She had three sons, her pride and joy, who were the finest Adepts in the land. They performed amazing feats and miracles for anyone who asked. They grew in might such as to rival the gods themselves, the four spirits of Alchemy, who in jealous rage hatched a plan to destroy them. They were visited by a spirit in a dream, who told them that if they were to touch the Golden Sun, the Philosopher's Stone, they would become gods. In their pride, unheeding of their mother's foreboding, they touched it and were instantly driven insane. Acheron cursed the gods by name and tried to destroy the Stone. She forged a sword to destroy it, a sword tempered in her tears of blood."

Mia gasped, but Ivan failed to notice. "She failed in her attempt to reach the Stone and turned the blade on herself." He paused for a second, then continued.

"But there is another story told of Acheron, a darker story told in darker places. It is said that she lives on in a cavern under the world as a disturbed spirit, forever plotting her revenge on the gods. Those who have a grudge to settle may ask her for help, and be filled with her rage and her power. It is said that... that the blade still exists. It wanders the world, cursing all who touch it to share Acheron's darkness." The rain pattered around them, a fit backdrop for the dark secrets spilling from Ivan's lips.

"I fear that Felix has found the secret. She gives help, it is true, gives strength to fight and to draw breath, but it is a dark aid and a corrupting strength. Acheron is a jealous mistress, and if he does not break away he will destroy himself as she did."

Isaac looked shocked.

"You mean he'll...he'll..."

Ivan nodded grimly.

"Isaac, I'd stay away from him if I were you. The seal of the Slayer is on his forehead. If he does not save himself, no one else can." As the last syllable rolled into the dark wet air Ivan started and fell backwards, reaching behind him for the support of the wall. He sunk weakly to the floor, shaking his head.

"Ugh...what...what happened? What was I talking about?"

Mia frowned in concern. Lightning flared, etching Ivan's face into her retinas; the ship rolled heavily and she braced herself against the wall.

"Don't you remember anything?"

Ivan furrowed his brow, rubbed his forehead.

"I remember going to tell Mia about something. I saw a vision about Felix, but I can't recall any of the details just now. I-uh... I was coming off the ladder, and then… I... I don't remember. Geez, my head really hurts."

Mia grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He needed to get out of this rain before he caught cold or something.

"Well, come on. We'll make you feel better."

Ivan smiled hazily.

"Thanks, Mia. You're the best." They stumbled below together, Ivan's arm across Mia's helpful shoulder, an awkward and cramped dance. Isaac remained above, lost in thought. The waves rolled and crashed, white spray and black water.

* * *

><p>Mia bustled about the kitchen area, tending to Ivan. Working rapidly, she poured a cup of water from a spigot, froze it, and smacked it sharply against the sink, pouring the resulting ice shards into a rag and twisting it closed. She carried the setup over to Ivan, slumped in a chair, who accepted it gratefully. She grabbed a towel and shook it out with a flick of her wrists.<p>

"Thanks." He held it to his forehead while he questioned her. "So how long was I out of it, anyway? What kind of stuff was I saying?"

Mia shuffled nervously before replying, busying herself by rubbing him down.

"Um, I don't know. Just some stuff about a lighthouse and Felix. You were going on about how he's unhappy and stuff like that."

Ivan studied her for a split second.

"It was that bad, huh?" he asked quietly. Mia looked up sharply. "You've got a good heart, Mia, and that makes you a terrible liar. Sorry." She studied her feet intently. "Well, I won't torture you. I don't really want to hear it, and it'll come back to me eventually. Right now, I think I'm going to lie down for a while."

She stood up, draping the towel over his head. He got up shakily and smiled. "Thanks, Mia."

As he headed off Mia fell into a chair herself, taking a deep breath, surrounded by the ship. It no longer seemed adequate protection. 

* * *

><p>The door creaked open again, bringing a brief increase in the noise of the storm; then it shut and the rain faded to a muted roar once more. Isaac came in with slow, heavy steps and sat across from her. It took him a second to collect his thoughts; she left him alone in peace.<p>

"I've never seen Felix like that before," he finally said. Despite her private beliefs, she had to agree with that. "He's tied up in something ugly and I don't like it at all."

He heaved a gusty sigh. "What the hell, Mia? Has he really sold his soul to something? Is that what's behind all this? How much can he have changed from who I remember?"

"Do you believe that story about the sword?" She had to ask. He turned to her.

"Of course. Don't you? I don't want to, but I don't have any choice. That seems to be a trend lately."

As much as she hated to admit the possibility, it fit with everything she'd picked up so far. However unpleasant, it was the truth. Why did the truth always hurt so much?

"I do. I believe it. I trust Ivan. It's just..." she shuddered, "It's so scary. I don't like it."

"I don't either."

She sat in silence, listening to the water drip off Isaac's clothes. What was this nightmare they'd stumbled into? Could the world of happy men be so far away? She felt a million miles between this black, tumbling ship and the land, land where the sun shone and the grass was soft under her feet. The days when they'd laughed and planned and walked seemed from another lifetime.

She sighed and Isaac shifted and they looked into each other's eyes. She was so tired and sad, and he was in over his head. No words were necessary; they understood. She tapped on the table, and after a second he got up to put on dry clothes. Felix needed them both outside.

Who was he, anyway?


	12. Collapse

__Catharsis

Storm II/Collapse

_Trust me, my thoughts will become all too clear in due time...  
>- Alex<em>

_They looked so severe... You'd think they carried the fate of the world on their shoulders.  
>- Villager<em>

Felix had allowed himself to be wrapped in a few extra layers of protection, though he'd tossed most of it off his face and arms right away. He stared off into a distance only he could see. Isaac kept his back to him, getting enough resistance from the ship to keep his full attention. She watched as Felix slowly came back to reality; his eyes were actually more vacant in this world than in his own. She sighed to herself. His eyes focused on Isaac's sturdy back.

"Still got that scarf." He spat out monosyllabic amusement. Isaac tensed, then slowly relaxed.

"I wish you weren't on this ship, Isaac."

Isaac turned at that. She knew he was thinking "Yeah, me too", was saying it mentally to himself, but all he offered Felix was a placid, expressionless invitation to keep talking. Now that she knew, she kept watching Felix, kept trying to distinguish between him and his guest.

"I'm not going to apologize to you," Felix said flatly. "I wish you weren't here to see it, but I'm gonna do a lot worse before this is over." That didn't sound good. He was quickly growing pale, losing touch.

"Like what, Felix? Like what?" Isaac asked quietly.

"Agatio." He coughed, spat up a line of red. "…Karst. I'm gonna kill 'em." _Huh?_

"Why?"

"I'm gonna light the beacon," he said, oblivious. She began to strongly suspect he didn't know where he was anymore. "Gonna… go to Prox." His voice sank to a throaty, vicious whisper, choking on his emotions. "... And I'm gonna burn it...to the ground."

"Why. WHY?" Isaac shouted, but it was too late. Felix was unconscious. They exchanged an unbelieving stare.

"What the hell?" she said. Isaac was slowly shaking his head.

"This is what he's been planning all along. This… I don't understand."

Something burst through deep in her chest, something demanding immediate attention. It might have been a Djinn, might have been something she knew herself.

"Isaac. Go talk to Jenna."

"Wha? No. I can't. I don't want to-"

"Isaac. Go. Talk. To. Jenna. I'm gonna deal with him." She tossed her head over to the corner. Isaac gave her an unhappy look.

"Mia. Please tell me what you know." Something in that tone hurt her. She looked carefully at Felix, unconscious, bleeding, out of control.

What did she know? Nothing. No one knew anything. But he had done so much. He had come so far. Somewhere below this insanity there had once been reason and decision.

Every time she began to feel just a flicker of sympathy or pity for Felix he went out of his way to snuff it out with unnecessary violence.

He had offered her a candle.

In the end, she was confronted with a simple choice.

… She didn't know, but she was willing to take a leap of faith. She owed that much to her dreams and to the hope that had once kept them alive. She spoke.

"Isaac. I don't know any more than you do. But I refuse to believe, after all this, that there's not some reason behind this." He was willing to give her that, she was glad to see.

"Jenna is the only one that might know."

With that, he finally gave in, leaving her alone in the wheelhouse. He left the ship's wheel glued in position by some Psy trick she couldn't quite see; after a careful, close inspection, however, she was certain it wasn't going anywhere.

She stared out the window, the glass smeared by the rain.

* * *

><p>Revenge. That was the final goal of all this, then. Revenge. What a waste. She honestly wished she could stop caring what Felix did. If only she could just walk away from this. For some reason, though, it mattered. She'd had enough of this madness, this strangely coherent disease. She'd sunk enough into this to want desperately to believe that Felix had some kind of justification, no matter how weak or crude, for his behavior. He obviously meant every word, even if he'd been partially delirious.<p>

What did he mean to her, anyway? Any other time she'd feel stupid for worrying. This time was frozen in place. Everything had finally paused, life deciding to go bother someone else for just two seconds. Her mind was strangely unfocused, as if she was gazing in on herself from outside. It was crystal-clear honesty. Felix was an unstable wreck, who was keeping a secret that might soon kill him. He was frightening and aloof. And yet she couldn't pretend that was all he knew. If she could hate him… but she couldn't. The Venus Lighthouse still haunted her. Somewhere in there was a shell of a man who deserved better from Fate.

* * *

><p>"…Who's got the wheel? …Mia?" Felix was awake again, staring around groggily. She turned from the wheel.<p>

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to deal with you for a little while," she said.

"The wheel. What's going on?"

"Isaac glued it to the frame somehow."

"I should have thought of that," he said reprovingly to himself.

"Dammit, Felix, you can't! You can't think of everything!" she exploded, mainly to let off the force of his earlier revelation.

"I can try."

"But it's not working, Felix. You were too stubborn to ask for help last night, and you almost got freaking _killed, _do you hear me? Dead. I can't do anything for dead. I can't bring you back. All I can do is toss your worthless carcass into the ocean and try and think of something to tell Jenna!"

"You're way too involved in this, Mia. I wanted all of you out. I was going to go to Prox alone, actually."

"And what would happen in Prox?" she asked fiercely. His eyes narrowed.

"Nothing. Lighting the lighthouse, obviously. Why?"

"Felix…" - she took a breath – "you woke up ten minutes ago and told Isaac and I a little secret of yours."

"…Oh. I see," he said slowly. "My little… secret. Which one?"

"You were planning on a one-man war against Prox, for reasons you have withheld from us."

"Ah. That."

"Felix, you're just scaring me now." She swallowed, collected herself, went on. The piercing gaze of those dark eyes was hard to bear. "There are some times in life, Felix, when you come to a point where you must leave part of yourself behind. It's up to you whether you keep good or bad. But…you can't turn back from this."

_You will become a monster, Felix. You will strangle your soul, and leave it behind forever. _

"Yeah. I know," he said soberly, knowing exactly what she meant. "I can't go back. But what do I have left, Mia? Saturos once said to me …that the most dangerous man alive is the man with nothing left. Now I know what he meant."

"Saturos is from Prox," she said desperately.

"Saturos is dead, Mia." His face grew hard.

"What about Jenna? Your family here? They mean nothing?"

"They mean everything," he said, with a passion that made her wince. "But I can't live with them; they can't live with me. Prox hurt me unforgivably. I'm going to hurt them back. And then I'm leaving for good."

"Who are you?" she burst out. "Every time I start to feel sorry for you you crush it with something like this. Who are you, and why are you doing this?"

Felix sighed.

"I am myself, and no one else." He looked at her like that was supposed to mean more, but she was too impatient for riddles now.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me," he said. "If you go down that road I'm just going to hurt you in the end."

"You're not doing a very good job right now," she said, beginning to cry for some reason. Why did that always happen?

"Trapped, am I?" Felix said, another odd little smile on his lips. "Be cruel and make you suffer now, or be kind and make you suffer later. Maybe I can't force myself to it either."

"Why are you so kind to me and so cruel to Prox?" she said, still sniffling miserably. She was so pathetic. Surely he could see those two were opposed, not reconcilable.

"I have nothing else," he said. "I won't deny it's wrong, but it's what I'm going to do. Hate me, please, by all means."

She just couldn't.

There were footsteps pounding across the deck outside, toward her.

She shook her head.

"I can't. Felix, I just can't. I know you could be so much more than this."

That seemed to catch him off guard in some way. He smiled.

"Well done, Mia. I will stand any abuse, bear up under any insult, accept any name… except that of failure."

And then the door burst in. Isaac skidded to a sloppy halt between them, overbalancing and correcting himself. Jenna was in the door behind him.

"Felix, why-why-why didn't you tell me?"

He was crying.

* * *

><p>"There's no guarantee that your dad's alive, Isaac," Felix said warningly. Isaac nodded, just barely in control of himself. Felix grew irritated at his agitated state.<p>

"Damn it, Isaac. I didn't want you to hope." She heard it the wrong way, but apparently Isaac didn't.

"I know, Felix, I know. Jenna told me you haven't seen him alive since…since-" he broke off again.

"I haven't. I'm sorry. I wish I could help you, Isaac, but I don't even know where to begin." As she looked back and forth in confusion, Isaac dropped to the floor, unable to stand any longer.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Felix's parents were alive. They'd supposedly been killed in the flood, but Felix had survived, so why not others? Felix, as usual, was reluctant to share information, and Jenna stayed mostly mute. From muttered hints, half-completed sentences, and meaningful looks, though, she eventually composed a narrative that made sense. That narrative needed to be discussed with someone. She stood.<p>

"Jenna, can we talk outside?" Somewhat surprised, the Mars Adept ducked out of the door, waiting for Mia to lead.

"Uh, Felix?" Jenna said from outside.

"What?"

"I'm sorry. It, uh, wasn't any of my-"

"It's fine. Don't worry," he said, and resumed watching Isaac, obviously torn.

* * *

><p>"So Felix survived the flood, and his parents did as well?" They stood under her protective curtain, alone.<p>

"Yes."

"When did he join up with Prox?"

"He didn't join up," Jenna spat. "They forced him."

She nodded. That made sense somehow.

"Felix always just wanted to get back to us, tell us what had happened to him."

She could even picture it. Felix waking up in a distant country, taken in by someone. Or maybe not; maybe just looking around and then hitting the road, with that force of decision he had.

"Just outside of Vault Saturos and Menardi caught him. They'd found our parents just a bit earlier, and they made him go with them to a spot on the coast where their ship was hidden. They took him to Prox."

"I see," Mia said. In a way, she did see. She saw it all. There was a point in that tale she could almost lay a finger on, the point where Felix learned to bury anger deep where it could grow. Where he began to listen to his captors, began to wield a sword in earnest. He wore a smile and the red cloak of Prox, while inside him a terrible cold void grew. She could almost see the snow, swirling around that lone figure, lost for eternity.

"You know what?" Jenna said wonderingly. "I think you do see." She smiled sadly.

_Failure._ It just kept ringing in her head.

"Just telling us would have been a lot easier," Mia said, turning the question into a statement. Why ask when you knew the answer?

"Yes, but it wouldn't have been Felix, and you know that."

Mia nodded.

"Well, that's a better reason than I was hoping for." And it really was. She couldn't describe how much lighter she felt, knowing that Felix wasn't just going crazy. "Still, I can't really agree to this."

"I'm not as patient or generous as you are, Mia," Jenna said. "I wouldn't mind a few dead Proxians myself."

_I know exactly what you mean. But we can't do that. We just can't, _she thought, watching Jenna stride away toward the cabin's shelter. Mia absent-mindedly floated a shield over the Mars Adept's head until she got to the door. Anything important enough for Jenna to get soaking wet was worth considering.

* * *

><p>Inside the wheelhouse, Felix was out cold again. Isaac was staring at the floor.<p>

"I told him we'll help him," he said.

"Of course," she affirmed.

"Mia, this changes everything. Why wouldn't he just tell me?"

"You and I both know that. He's still decent enough to want us not to see the end."

"But I _understand_ now," he said unhappily, not satisfied. She looked over at Felix's unconscious form.

_Willing to let us think you were crazy, evil, possessed, so long as we could live our lives unspoiled? I admit it. I'm impressed. Now just throw away that damned sword. _

_Failure. Who are you failing, in your own mind? _

She was beginning to learn something. She was beginning to see something about perception, about dead men's history and the secrets of the mute and stubborn. She was beginning to see the faintest hint of how to fit Felix together.

The rain lasted, and lasted, and lasted. At some point night had begun to fall, putting a merciful end to the interminable grey. They sat in the common room that by now had become home, each absorbed in his or her own thoughts. Garet, his presence comforting as always, was to her left, staring out a darkened window into the black. He'd reacted well to the news, sharing her opinion that Felix's secret motivation was miles better than nothing.

Ivan had not, merely muttering dire predictions with a frown and going to bed. For all of them, though, it added an intensely personal reason to get north as fast as possible, something much more tangible and useable than "saving the world". Felix's personal problems were something they could help solve; somehow it felt like they were making something up to him.

_Failure._ She couldn't stop it. Of all the things that Felix feared, if he feared anything else, that was what worried him the most. He wanted not to fail. To fail what? To fail whom?

Couldn't he see he was failing all of them right now, enacting this lunatic scheme? She rode the crest of revelation, stunned by what she was discovering. They wanted him to be a leader. They all needed him to be more.

And he could see it. He did see it. Somehow she knew that. Of all the roles Felix had taken on, all the burdens he felt he was dropping, warrior, avenger, savior, sufferer… brother was the one he regretted. When she closed her eyes she could see his, and for the first time she could see the pain burning behind the ice.

So who was Felix?

* * *

><p>Done. School is quite a burden this time of year, and I don't have much free time. Rest assured, however, that I'm still grinding away at this. It'll be done before the year's out with any luck.<p>

Anyway, I hate spoiling the chapter even a little bit in the intro text, so I'll say here: the reason I like this one is because we're beginning to move into the "plot thread resolution" stage. I've never actually made it this far with a post 13-to-14-year-old project, so it's quite exciting.

Big Experiment for this chapter isssss... LINE BREAKS! Tell me if they worked or not, please!

R&R please! Thanks for reading!


	13. Break

I'm not sure whether to return with a triumphant drumroll or an apologetic skulk, so it's probably wisest not to do anything.

I _am_ back, after a disgusting two-month hiatus. Hi all. Thanks to everyone who favorited the story in my absence and to **GreysonPaladin** and **Noel the mermaid**, who had some nice and useful things to say.

I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time this year, and I mention that both to use it as an excuse and to thank it for giving me the impetus not only to write these five thousand-odd words but also to do a half-decent job editing them.

On with the story!

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Break

_And yet you still want to fight? Ship of fools...  
>- Saturos<em>

_Felix will be all right. We'll find a way to save him...  
>- Dora<em>

Mia stood carefully, wiping a stray hair off her face. Felix had told her about five minutes ago that they were nearing some settlement on the coast, and he was going to land come hell or high water. Wispy rags of grey cloud floated between her and the dark rocks, now obscuring, now revealing. The last few hours had shaken her enough that she hadn't slept, and the dark circles under her eyes felt sore to the touch. She rubbed absently and dropped her fist, her boots shifting for support on the cold wet deck. The fog rolled in, clammy white mist brushing her face and slipping away. A solitary light burned high ahead, fighting feebly through the murk. It was enough to steer by, Felix had said.

* * *

><p>Isaac had spoken early in the morning, before the first hints of dawn crept over the sea. The first words in several heavy hours had been:<p>

"So we're the villains after all."

"Isaac, please," she'd begged.

"I know. I know. I didn't know, there was nothing I could do, this isn't my fault, I know. But I can't help it. I can't help but go back over every minute of the last three years and try to find the time I could have changed all this."

"We're going to help him, Isaac. We're going to set the world right. And that's going to have to be good enough. You've seen what that much guilt does to a person. It's destroying him."

* * *

><p>She rocked and stood upright and watched the sea rage. The coast lay ahead, now above her, now below her, but always getting closer. The storm had caught up to them, and it would be difficult not to smash up against something. The ship fell, and rose again. She couldn't calm this much water; only enough to smooth out the sharp bumps and drops. Besides, she was tired, more than she ever remembered being before.<p>

* * *

><p>Isaac had pointed off into the distance, at a place where she almost imagined a faint spark of light.<p>

"A beacon. See it?"

"I see it."

"There's a mining settlement on the coast named Loho. Felix told me he wanted to aim for it, and for once I wholeheartedly agree with him."

She'd smiled wryly. Isaac had continued.

"We can stretch our legs, fill up on water and supplies, get Piers patched up. After that… after that…"

"What comes next?"

"I don't know. For all our differences, Felix does know how to get to Prox, and I don't, so I'll have to let him take over again."

Prox. The end. Their story was coming to a close. As much as she wanted it all to be over… the cold made her eyes water suddenly. She'd rubbed at them discreetly, hoping Isaac wouldn't notice. He must have guessed what she was thinking, though.

"Mia… you'll always be welcome at my house. Ivan and Garet and I…we – we couldn't have done it without you." He'd chuckled, making a cloud of breath blow out and vanish. "That sounds so corny, but it's true."

She'd flushed as the first fingers of dawn tore the sky into pink and orange strips.

"Thanks, Isaac. I can't believe we're so close."

"Time for that will be when we're there, Mia," he'd warned gently. "Anything could happen."

"You know what? You're right," she'd said, smiling to herself. "Anything could happen."

* * *

><p>After Isaac had finally calmed down and gone to sleep she'd headed back outside, pushing her way into the morning cold. The sun would have to fight if it wanted to live this day, she'd reflected grimly. A taste of what she and her friends knew every day. Grey clouds threatened to smother the dawn before it was even fully born.<p>

What if Kyle was alive? She'd heard Isaac speak the name once before. What if. He was dead. But as she'd bitten her lip, numbed by the frosty rain, even that cold certainty had been uncertain. Felix had acted according to his curiously dim and twisted lights in keeping that news a secret. No; that wasn't right. What was curious about those lights, hiding away in tattered darkness, was how straight and bright they were. No one as tortured as Felix had any right to a moral compass as harshly exacting as his. But then again, if he had no scruples he wouldn't be tortured in the first place, would he.

She'd let herself down onto the floor of the wheelhouse with a quiet sigh, letting the rain run off her clothes and plink down to the ground. Being soaked and cold didn't bother her at all tonight; she felt clean, refreshed, whole again.

"Isaac was pretty broken up today."

She didn't turn, didn't look from under her screen of wet blue hair. She just tightened the pull of her arms around her knees, drawing in just a little bit.

"Yeah. He was. There's been a lot of hard revelations for us lately," she stated.

Felix reflected for a second. He was sober, collected, in control again. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks that his delirium had blown over quickly.

"You know, he feels sorry for you," she said.

"Really. After all this."

"After all this, Felix," she said.

"After everything I'm planning to do? Didn't you say you heard that?"

"He's your friend, Felix. If I remember my history, that's not a bond that the Venus Clan takes lightly." She instantly swallowed, regretting the aftertaste of that not-too-subtle rebuke. Leaning so hard on him wasn't helping anything. "I'm sorry."

"You're _right_," he said simply. "Don't bother being sorry."

She wasn't sure what to say to that. Fortunately Felix changed the subject.

"What are you going to do when all this is over?"

"You mean if I don't die?" she snapped, still upset and bleak. Then she recovered herself to an extent.

"I… I don't know," she said more softly. "I can't go back to Imil, not after everything I've seen out here and everything I've done. I'm not the same person anymore."

She couldn't go back to Imil whatever else happened.

"What about your villagers? The healing work?" He actually was being sincere, she noted with some surprise, again wondering slightly at his constant, abrupt changes in mood. They were coming more and more frequently now, and she scarcely dared to hope that meant a peak to some sort of resolution. She brushed a hair up behind her ear and curled up more tightly.

"When I left the village, I had my apprentices assume I was dead." The last crackling syllable sounded harsh even to her own ears, but the words were already out.

"Wise."

"It's already been two years, and they are young, enthusiastic, and competent," she said. "I have no doubt that Imil is in hands as skilled as my own. Better, really, since there's two of them and only one of me." She paused for a second.

"What are you going to do when this is all over, Felix?" She put the question in the lightest, cheeriest conversational tone she could muster, but he stared into her eyes for a long second and Mia wryly knew that they both were aware of the real answer. Felix was hoping to die at some point, any point. She was agreeing to take whatever lie he came up with as truth. But he didn't play any light-hearted, lying games with her.

"If I throw away the sword what is that even going to fix? What will I have left?" he burst out. She was silent for a moment, wondering just how much to give away.

"You can do it, Felix," she said softly. "I know you can." Too much? He hadn't noticed anything. Not that there was anything there to notice, she thought angrily.

"Pssh." A scornful sound. "Life isn't a bedtime story, Mia. Just because I removed the curse, I'd somehow regain all the power it gave me? Just because I have to protect you all doesn't mean I _can_."

"Mercury would not let such a thing happen," she said firmly. "You would find the strength somewhere."

He laughed bitterly.

"Oh how I wish that were true."

"It is true," she said, with the same force. "It would be true if you didn't insist on doing everything yourself."

"But then only one person risks getting killed."

"You don't deserve that, Felix," she said, guessing at what he was thinking.

"Sure," he replied, unconvinced.

"Just walk away, Felix. Just be someone else, so you don't have to die."

"Why?" he said shortly.

"I don't know what to tell you, Felix," she said. "But I believe there's always hope. …You could make yourself into something better… if you really wanted to."

"Why should I bother?" he asked. The question was not sarcastic. His earlier bitterness had begun to fade, and she had the strangest sense they were getting to the heart of something.

"Because you could be more than this, Felix! Some things are worth fighting for, and…and some things are worth fighting against. No one may ever know but you, but… but I think it's still worth doing anyway!" she burst out fiercely, frustrated by her own incoherency. He gave her a small smile, looking into himself.

"I like that." This seemingly small comment, something about the way he was smiling, put a giddy twist in her stomach. She ducked her head down, and was intensely grateful for the next few moments of pure, thoughtful silence.

"I had a dream last night. I think the poison got to my head."

She wasn't meant to take that seriously. Felix, making a joke?

"It was a bit strange. I saw a lot of people I haven't thought about in years, some people I've met along the way. I learned a bit about…something to come." She shivered at the sudden chill in his voice. Thankfully Felix moved on, growing warmer. "I saw Sheba and Jenna. I…I saw you. With a candle, in the darkness." She caught his eye in surprise, a half-smile forming on her lips, but he was perfectly still and serious.

"I _knew, _without hearing anything… I knew… and Isaac today, he's like a messenger…" He shook his head, dark hair sliding across his white face. "I'm sorry, I'm not making any sense. This is it, Mia."

There was a weight of meaning attached to those words that she almost didn't want to believe. Her breath came a bit quicker, and she sat up, letting go of her knees. He reached back to the wall and down to the floor, levering himself upright. She scrambled to her feet, heart racing, and followed his even stride outside.

Out on the deck tinges of pink and orange had stained the sky, a rare, short-lived break from the oppressive hurricane. Felix walked like one condemned to the high stern of the ship, his steps slow and measured. She followed a short distance behind him, and stopped a few feet away.

He drew the sword. It slid rasping and grating from the sheath across his back, and sprung free. She had the opportunity to study the blade carefully – it appeared to be steel at first, but with a jolt she realized it wasn't. The "steel" was something like ice, a layer formed over the top of a dark, cold metal beneath. It looked twisted, darker than black, as if it were absorbing light… and then she found she couldn't break her gaze from it. Felix snapped it around to his chest, and when she looked up, shaking off the first faint trace of panic, he was watching her.  
>"Careful. You'll end up just like me."<p>

She nodded, the reprimand well deserved. Felix turned back to the sword, drawing a long white piece of cloth from somewhere on his person. With quick, deft movements, he wrapped the blade, covering it from sight. Then he clutched the white bundle firmly and made a strange jerking gesture with it, out to sea. She realized with a choking laugh that he was trying to throw it overboard, and put a single foot forward, reaching out.

"Felix, let me do it."

He turned with a slight, sheepish grin.

"No. You can't. I'll do it. Just… just make sure I get rid of it, please."

He turned back to the stern and stepped right up to the railing. His shoulders were hit with the golden glow of the sunrise, the liquid light rolling off him and across the warm brown planks toward her. Felix stood there for a long time. He stared out at something only he could see on the faint, smudgy horizon, perhaps willing his gaze to pierce the grey, gradually lightening dark.

She stood with him and waited, watching the more and more pronounced rise and fall of his breathing as he worked himself up to the final commitment. Beyond him, the light touched the tops of the blue waves, scorching the white foam of their wake to a pale orange. They were in a small circle of pale sunrise, surrounded on all sides by the scowling darkness of the storm. It was as if the gods themselves held their breath, as if the universe recognized this moment was the only one that mattered. She listened to the racing of her heart, vaguely surprised at how much this meant to her. All these days and sleepless nights, fighting with this man, fighting with the darkness he carried inside him… but Felix had smiled once, and by the gods he'd smile again.

They rocked, and waited. Completely without warning, Felix's arm came back, his body balanced on his back foot, arched as far back as he could go. Then he shot forward, and the sword lanced out in a long, arcing flight over the water. The cloth slowly unraveled as it fell, hanging in the air. The sword splashed down into the sea, casting up a tiny shower of spray, and the cloth came down to rest on top of it as if marking its final grave. It continued to bob there as she flicked her eyes to Felix, who had remained immobile since the sword had left him. He turned slowly, and she caught a blurred glimpse of his face before he pitched forward onto his hands.

"Felix!" She rushed forward. He spat out blood, streams of it, long sticky strands falling to the deck between his spatter-stained hands and pooling up. Right as she reached him in panic and terror, he collapsed over onto his side, groaning.

"Aauuggh."

Mia stood over him, heart racing, trying to catch his eyes. Then he caught sight of her and sighed weakly.

"…Wasn't expecting that to happen."

She breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed his extended hand, supporting him as best she could while he fought to gain his feet. As he staggered up, she pulled his heavy arm across her narrow shoulders. He kept as much of his weight on his feet as he could, despite the erratic pace it was forcing him to adopt, and she gave in but didn't let go of his arm. The stubborn swordsman wasn't going to land on his face again if she could help it.

"So, wait. Just that one thing I said convinced you?"

He laughed as best he could, trying to suppress a cough.

"No. I knew all that already. I've always wanted to just get rid of the thing…I just needed a reminder."

She doubted that was all there was to it, but ...probably wisest to let it rest.

Mia shuffled along with him, working their way out of the piercing early-morning cold back to the inside of the ship. That sword had represented quite a large portion of Felix's life, she reflected. He'd carried it across five continents and two oceans, shed blood in every corner of the world, defended himself and others from harm. And on her urging, he'd thrown it away. She ducked her head under his arm briefly, twisted to see the square of white cloth still rolling on the water, and turned back.

"Well, I'm glad that's over with," Mia said. He sighed, more lightly than before.

"To be honest… so am I. _I_ I, I mean, not the …other I."

"I know what you mean."

* * *

><p>She'd crashed into Garet's room and nearly fallen over on top of him, the inside of the ship much more convincingly mimicking predawn blackness. Garet moaned as she'd shaken him furiously, not really moving his broad shoulders much more than an inch. Finally his eyes had cracked open.<p>

"…Wha… It's too early. Go 'way."

"Garet. Garet."

"…Wha..."

"Felix got rid of the sword. He threw it away!"

"…Wha…?" He sat up, throwing back the covers and accidentally knocking her over, but she bounced back up. His hair looked like a small explosion atop his head, spikes sticking out in all directions, and she had to stifle a giggle that came back from the early days of their time together. She'd found out right outside of Imil that few things were funnier than interrupting Garet's beauty sleep, putting him in a condition Ivan described as "a red hedgehog with a hangover".

"He threw it away? Really?"

She nodded, and he swept her up in a hug, bedclothes and all. She reflected, as the air was slowly crushed out of her lungs, that he probably was not thinking all too clearly.

"Congratulations, Mia," he said, grinning in the semi-dark as he released her. "Isaac and I owe this all to you. I can't wait to see his face when you tell him."

She blushed modestly.

"Thanks, Garet. I'm so excited."

"Didja kiss him?" Garet asked, with a sudden flare of mischievousness.

"Did – what? What – no! No I did not… not… _kiss_ him," she sputtered, alarmed to hear her voice die out at the critical word. He had already slumped back down into bed with his back to her, shaking the whole frame with silent, barely-restrained laughter. She thumped his mighty back with one tiny fist.

"Garet, you _jerk_!"

At this high-pitched chuckles began escaping from him, though he was still trying his best to hold it in. Then he flipped his head over for a quick peek at her, fists clenched, burning with righteous indignation, and she watched his eyes shoot open wide and his jaw tense before he ducked down again, laughing even harder. She poured ice water on him and scampered out the door. Normally vengeance was below her, but something like that couldn't be allowed to stand.

* * *

><p>Mia took a breath. The sword was gone. It was hard to clearly define just how the change had affected her, it had had such widespread influence. The very colors of the world seemed brighter. She felt… she felt as if she'd finally done something really, wonderfully right for the first time since she'd left Imil.<p>

_Felix… you haven't failed today. _

The light loomed up high above her, a tiny torch burning in a dark eye in the cliff. The mist was gradually clearing, revealing a somber, gravelly beach at the far end of a wide, dark bay. Felix cut the ship smoothly into the shallows, coming into the land in a gentle curve. She gripped the railing at the prow tightly, and after a second's gliding the ship's keel crunched into the slick pebbles of the shore below her. Recovering herself, she looked around.

She could see a dark, shadow-cloaked gap in the tall, fractured cliffs, but nothing was visible inside it. There was no motion or sound from anywhere on the shore, just the light burning through the mist above. She shivered involuntarily. Garet tramped to a halt just behind her and grunted; she turned to see the anchor go flying out and smash into the wet rocks below. He plucked at the heavy chain and let go, looking absurdly satisfied with himself. She smiled.

At the far end of the ship she could just make out Felix ducking out of the wheelhouse before he was blocked by a small crowd of people all trying to squeeze out of the cabin door at once. She counted Isaac, Ivan, Jenna, Kraden, and Sheba - both the smallest and most enthusiastic. The small blond fought her way clear of the others and raced up to where Mia stood, catching herself on the rail and leaning far out over the edge. Kraden followed at the most dignified pace his excitement would permit, and Ivan and Jenna were close behind. Isaac trailed last, and as he came close she could see he was just as tired and battered-looking as she felt. His hair was a slovenly mess and his clothes were wrinkled up beyond recovery. Mia tuned into the excited chatter buzzing by her left ear.

"Where is everyone?" Sheba.

"Ugh. Fog. Wonderful. …I forgot my sweater." Jenna.

"Hm. There's definitely someone living back there…" Ivan muttered thoughtfully. Behind and below all the other voices, she could hear Kraden's ancient mumble going on and on about lost cultures and cliffside settlements and so forth.

"…But they're not human." The din was silenced at this. Sheba spun around.

"Or, at least… not exactly…" Ivan rubbed his chin and suddenly became aware of everyone staring at him. "What?"

She looked over at Kraden and saw the scholar's eyes were shining. So many things were going through his head he was rendered speechless. She grinned.

"Is this those lycan…things again?" Jenna said, arms folded against the chill. Sheba was practically bouncing up and down, but Mia didn't know what the excitement was.

"Lycanthropes?" Felix said from behind them. "What's going on?"

"Yeah, that's it," Jenna said to herself, while Sheba squealed.

"Really? They were so cute!"

"Sheba, calm down," Felix said gently. "You don't have any idea what's out there."

"Yeah, there's probably man-eating snakes the size of me," Garet teased. Mia shivered.

"That's not funny, Garet!" Sheba said reprovingly.

"I've been here once before," Felix said, cutting over Garet and Sheba's developing argument, "and I can say that there are most definitely no man-eating snakes in Loho." Sheba stuck out her tongue at Garet, who made a face. Isaac spoke up.

"So what is there?"

She swore she could see the ghost of a smile on Felix's face.

"You'll see." He plucked Garet's sleeve and they walked back to the cabin, emerging a few long minutes later with Piers draped between them. Felix handed off his side of the weight to Isaac and hopped down to the ground below. She stepped back out of the way, and Isaac and Garet lowered Piers' still form down to him. They climbed off one by one; Garet grabbed Sheba under her arms, ignoring her protests with a huge grin, and threw her off roughly, nevertheless managing to drop her right into Felix's arms. He lowered everyone else down much more carefully, and before too long they stood in a tight group on the slick, shifting rocks.

* * *

><p>Felix was the first to move, tossing a "Well, come on" over his shoulder. They strode up through the rolling mist to a gradually apparent ramp, the ship shrinking into the white fog behind them. Too bad the morning sun hadn't lasted, Mia thought to herself. She didn't mind this too much, but she could tell it was annoying some of the others. They stepped onto the ramp and began the shallow climb to the cleft in the rocks.<p>

She studied the surface under her feet; worn, but solidly constructed. The smooth, pale yellow stones fit together with only the thinnest of hairline cracks. Just ahead, beyond Garet's back, she could see the V of the cliff. Then she noticed a tiny figure standing still, waiting for them. It almost looked like a statue, but as they made the final few steps she saw it was a man who came only to her chest. He was coated in mail which gleamed wetly, and gripped a spear in one tiny fist. A bushy red beard spilled down onto the mail, and his eyes were hidden in shadow beneath the pointed metal helmet he wore.

"Greetings," he said.

"The same to you," Felix replied levelly. "We are all that you see here, looking to rest and refit on a voyage north." The dwarf checked them over with swift, practiced glances and then returned his attention to Felix.

"Welcome, strangers," he said, and disappeared into a tiny door to one side of the passage which closed with a faint click. There was silence.

"So…" Isaac said.

"Now we can go in. I think." Felix resumed his pace, and soon the darkness swallowed them completely.

They came out onto a small ledge, overlooking vast pits and plains of stone. More dwarves stood here and there, gesturing and moving about. The sounds of talk and industry rose up on the morning air. Blue, thin smoke from a few campfires hung in the wet chill here and there. Felix smiled, looking out on a sight from his past.

"Welcome to Loho."

Their reverent, breathless silence was soon broken by a clamor of excited voices as everyone tried to sort themselves out. Kraden was loudly and repeatedly voicing his desire to talk to and inspect everyone in the area, and Sheba was backing him up. Garet eventually agreed to go along, and Jenna and Isaac followed a short distance behind the rest. They moved down the ramp into the settlement, voices fading, and were soon black silhouettes as small as the others. That left three of them atop the ledge, and she turned to Felix. He was already watching her.

"I assume you want to find a priest."

She made a gesture of assent. He looked around slowly.  
>"Over there." He shouldered Piers again and walked a short distance to the door he'd pointed out. He pushed it open with one hand, keeping Piers on his back, and as she walked in behind him she brushed a wondering hand over the intricate, twisting carving along the edge of the doorframe. Inside was surprisingly dry and warm, and she stood in the small chamber with Felix to wait.<p>

"Everything's so well built here," she whispered. Felix smiled with shared appreciation.

"I know."

Eventually a door opened elsewhere in the room and a priest came in, his robes and bald head symbols of reassurance. Mia subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, her spirit soaring yet higher. They were finally here and they had not lost anyone, Piers or Felix.

"What can I do for you?"

"This man needs to be revived," Felix said softly, letting Piers down onto the floor. But the priest was staring at him.

"I recognize you, my son. Headed north once more, I see, but not home; these are not those you came south with. No, not headed to home, but to destiny." Then he fell silent, and Felix counted out the tithe from his bag with subtle irritation. Money received, the priest bent over Piers' still form, and Felix fell back to where Mia was standing. He leaned against the wall with an expression of such profound annoyance that she had to stifle a giggle. Some things, apparently, were never going to change. Piers was getting shakily to his feet, and she turned to Felix.

"Your turn."

He scowled for a second, then thought better of it and headed back over to the priest. Piers stood by her in his turn.

"How are you, Piers?" she said.

"Feels good to be alive," he quipped. "Thanks for healing me on the ship."

"Of course," she said, mostly focused on Felix getting healed.

"…Uhh, speaking of the ship," Piers mumbled, looking suspiciously around, "it _is_ still in existence, yes?"

That got her full attention, and she smiled at Piers, who was beginning to fidget nervously.

"Yes, Piers, it's …mostly in one piece." Not quite as comforting as she'd intended. He fumbled out a few words about "going to check on" and raced out the door behind him. Ah well. With luck the repairs she and Isaac had made would pass his demanding inspection. She looked back right as Felix approached, stretching his arms above his head. His dark hair was still shading his eyes, but the shadows themselves were beginning to lighten, she fancied.

"Well, that's that. Hope you're happy," he said, unable to disguise his own lightness of tone.

"I am, to be perfectly honest," she smiled back. Mia nodded to the priest, who made a shallow bow in return.

"Lifting curses is unpleasant work," he said. "I can only imagine what it is like to bear them. A pleasure to aid you. Good luck in your travels."

Felix lifted his hand in farewell, and she strolled back out into the light with him. The sword was gone. She put a hand on his arm, and he stopped in the doorway.

"Felix," she said, wide-eyed and serious, "you haven't failed today."

He blinked, and slowly grinned.

* * *

><p>Felix only made it ten steps before putting one hand out against the wall of the cliff.<p>

"Ugh."

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

He shook his head.

"I'm fine."

She scrutinized his face, what she could see of it, carefully. He was a shade paler than usual but retained his general impassiveness.

"…The curse _is _gone, right?" she said mistrustfully.

"I think so," Felix said. She sidled up next to him, looking out over the mines. She'd lost track of nearly everyone, but after a bit of searching spotted a big spot topped with red that had to be Garet, waving his arms enthusiastically. She smiled, wondering what had happened to get him so excited. A few minutes passed.

"Felix…" she said. "Felix, you're closing up again. You were doing so well."

"I've never talked so much in my life," he said, perfectly straight-faced. "I'm exhausted."

"Why do you trust me so much anyway?" she asked curiously, knowing full well that there really wasn't any particular reason. Naturally she couldn't predict a reaction, but the one she got was far beyond the pale. Felix blushed. He definitely turned a very faint shade of red, and she fell back in complete confusion. As he didn't say anything, though, eventually the hammering in her ears began to clear up. But Felix continued to act nervous, clearly wanting and not-wanting to tell her something.

"I, uh…"

She leaned forward unconsciously, waiting; right as he seemed about to finally spit it out Sheba appeared behind him, yelling something incoherent, and Felix turned his head. Mia rolled her eyes in mild irritation – this was _important_!

"Are you two done screwing around yet?" she shouted in her high-pitched voice. The tone seemed calculated to grate on her ears. "We've found something and not even Kraden knows what it is and you should be down there c'mon!" Felix stirred and began to stumble off after Sheba, who remained completely oblivious to everything. Mia stayed put for a second longer, frowning, and heaved a sigh.

"Be still, my heart," she mumbled sourly. "No, really, stop doing that. This is Felix we're talking about, here." The sword was gone, certainly, but there were many long miles to go all of a sudden. She kicked at a small stone and followed them down to the floor of the mines.

* * *

><p>I won NaNo, in case anyone's wondering. That made my <em>year<em>. Hopefully this installment of Catharsis is up to snuff. Please review with any concerns or criticism you may have (no, honestly, those are the best kind.)

It's not keeping the regular blank spaces for some reason. Line breaks really annoy me, but whatever. Sorry about that.

I left it on a rather mean cliffhanger, so I'm starting the next bit right away. I won't be any harder on you than I have to. :D


	14. Loho

Hey guys, it's me again. Listen, I'm really sorry for the delay in chapters. I started writing this the day after I posted the last one. I've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff from the last few years lately, and I happened to also undergo a major crisis regarding the direction and purpose of this story at roughly the same time. :/ All emergencies and flying personal demons have been more or less dealt with.

This is a rather long author's note, as I have a lot of information to give you; bear with me.

Thanks to **Noel the Mermaid, Celestia's Paladin, fegs2fan,** and** Caellach Tiger Eye** for reviews. **SteadyXSword**, leave a signed review, man! I don't know if I've ever put this down in print before, so here is

DropOfInk's Official Review Policy: I give a thoughtful, legible reply to every single signed review I get. Especially if you ask a question, it's worth the extra four seconds.

Due to the prolonged absence of this story (dropped all the way to page three) I took this opportunity to revise the published material. I cut some unnecessary cursing, fixed a mistake or two, but here's the deal. I really messed up with Felix in this, due to not really knowing what I was doing in the beginning. I've got a much more solid grasp of his character now, and I want above all to do him justice – he's the center of the story, after all. So I ended up having to rewrite some significant chunks. This story is a _mess_, let me tell you. It's a hugely involved, self-referential, sprawling, insanely complicated train wreck, and I have had a crazy time keeping the motivations, thoughts, and internal development of eight characters straight while also making at least a feeble attempt to hit the events of TLA in the right order. So, the bad news is you should probably reread it. The good news is, I think (I hope) it's better enough to be worth the investment. I ended up adding a bit of new material to make some transitions smoother. It's a disaster back there, I tell ya.

I cut out all my sugar-high babbling in the author's notes, and I got rid of the joke chapter. Also I added quotes from the games as headers. I like how literary and pretentious it feels now.

Also this chapter is really really long.

Finally, this chapter sucks. If it sucks, I'm sorry. ._.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Loho

_It is proper for a warrior to be a man of few words.  
>– Kibombo, TLA<em>

_Good weapons aren't just sharp. They also draw out the strength_

_ of the user. ...So said my father. Do you know what he meant,_

_ Isaac? I do...  
>– Vale Merchant<em>

"But what does it _do_?"

Jenna's voice rang out in slight petulance, her arms crossed and eyes narrowed. Looking like that, she strongly reminded Mia of a certain dark-haired brother. Felix went up behind Jenna and Isaac, following Sheba's pulling fingers.

"Kraden thinks it's some kind of weapon," Isaac said, letting Felix observe for himself. Mia discreetly followed suit.

The object they were all staring at was a long metal cylinder mounted securely on a wooden frame. Kraden was crawling all around it, tapping, poking, and prying, and in between Mia caught glimpses of ornate finish and carving all along its length.

She decided she hadn't the faintest idea what it was.

"Hm," Felix offered, walking around to the opposite side. There he assumed the same position as Jenna, scowling at the machine as if he were intimidating it into submission.

"How do you think it works, Kraden?"

The scholar popped to his feet, energetically brushing dust off his knees.

"Well, you see the hole in that end. The other end is solid, and this frame is built like a rock. I think you're supposed to put something in there, and then…" he gestured –"it would come out!"

His hands fell to his sides. "…Somehow."

A dwarf Mia had not noticed stirred nearby.

"That's about as much as we've been able to figure out."

"But if anyone knows what was supposed to go in it… we don't now," Ivan said pensively.

"Where did you find this?" Felix asked quietly.

"We dug it up here in the ruins," the dwarf responded. "It's a unique find, and doesn't seem to have much in common with the rest of the dig."

Felix looked around at the towering walls of dirt and stone, a shade of sorrow across his eyes.

"I wonder what this place has seen," he said softly.

Staring at the tube, Mia shivered faintly, for an instant smelling blood on the wind.

The moment passed, and he returned to business, crouching at the other end of the tube.

"Tell me what you've tried," he said, his voice echoing oddly out of the pipe.

"We tried putting a rock in it, and got Garet to give it a good hard belt, and nothing happened," Isaac said.

"So that means whatever…makes it go… isn't in this part of it," Kraden said eagerly.

"Or it's broken," Felix said, looking up from the pipe end.

"No, I don't think so," the dwarf said. "This whole tube is one solid piece. There can't be a mechanism on it."

Mia looked from face to face, listening intently to the discussion. The whole group was fascinated by this strange find; only Garet had gotten bored and was doing something half out of sight a little ways off. At the dwarf's last words a tense silence fell, the intensity of thought almost palpable.

For her own part, she knew she had no hope of solving the mystery. She reflected instead on just how silly this little scene was. Felix, for all his troubles and his driving motivation, couldn't help himself with something like this. Almost against his will he was trying to figure it out, drawn in without thinking. In that he reminded her of Isaac. Isaac, who was always stopping with Ivan to solve puzzles and save helpless people – in certain ways they were very alike. She usually stayed a little to one side, like now, confident the others would figure it out.

Then Felix shot upright and leaned toward Jenna, a strange light in his eyes.

"Jenna… that rock. That stupid _rock_."

"What ro- oh, good grief. _That_ thing?" she said incredulously.

Felix chuckled to himself. Laughing at himself, really.

"It's on the ship." He turned and jogged past Mia, still amused, quickly disappearing up the ramp to the beach. She turned back to the group in total confusion.

"…What?"

Jenna sighed.

"We've spent a lot of time on this trip wandering around in every insane, gods-forsaken corner of Weyard there is. Deep in the heart of Gondowan, there's a mountain where rests a powerful Mars energy. Who knows how or when it got there, but it's there, and it called to me until we finally found it. We tripped around inside for almost two days." In those words Mia heard an ordeal better left unexplored. "Finally, on the way out, we found this little rock. You'll have to see it; it's practically glowing with energy."

"That sounds promising," Isaac said, "but I don't see how that could be related to this thing."

Jenna shrugged.

"Felix only took it with us because he wanted to gain _something_ from that disaster. I don't really see it either, but he obviously has an idea."

Isaac nodded, and they waited. Where they stood, the ramp descended into the shadow of a wall. All around, the high clay walls of the pit were glowing with the light of the early afternoon. The effect was striking. She saw Garet walking across to where they stood, his hair alone lit up by the sun.

"Hey, Isaac, come on over and take a look at this."

The two went back to where Garet had been puttering around earlier, and she saw Garet gesturing at something on the ground as he and Isaac rounded the shoulder of a ruined house. Kraden continued his incessant tappings with one fingernail, the endless _tink-tink-tink_ so ludicrously annoying that Mia had to snort and grin. He really had no idea where he was sometimes.

Finally Felix returned at a steady run. As he passed again she saw he had something wrapped in a cloth held tight against his chest. She closed in behind him, curious to see what would happen.

"You didn't tell me how hot this thing was," he said to Jenna reproachfully.

"Be careful. It's hot," she returned.

He shook his head and knelt before the opening. Out of the corner of her vision Mia saw Isaac and Garet strolling back to them, but before she could say anything Felix had jumped back to the side.

The first thing she heard was a tremendous ringing in her ears, a high-pitched shriek singing on and on.

The wall opposite the weapon had been utterly destroyed, an enormous rent torn in the stones. Isaac and Garet were lying face-down in the dirt of the square, where they'd sought shelter from the glowing ball of fire. As one, she looked guiltily with the others at the dwarf. What met her, though, was not anger; the dwarf was positively jumping up and down with contained excitement. Her hearing began to clear gradually, and the dwarf's shouts faded in.

"-did it! You did it, you really did it! It works!" In the usual course of things, she expected Kraden to be filling that role. She spotted him on her third glance around, wide-eyed and absolutely still. He was in shock so perfect she almost began to worry, but after a second he began cheering nervously.

"…Yes, I guess it does," Felix said tentatively.

The rest of the miners were slowly assembling around the hole in the masonry, ignoring Isaac and Garet's prostrate forms. As Mia and her companions walked over to join the larger group of dwarves, the two cautiously got to their feet. Smoke and dust from the rubble still hung in a cloud around them.

Felix cleared his throat.

"A-hem. Sorry about your wall…"

The senior dwarf turned on him.

"Sorry? We've been trying to get that wall down for months. Who knows what's still hidden back there?"

Certainly enough, five or six dwarves were pressing in, scrambling over the ruins of the wall. Mia saw nothing but musty air and dirt, but she was no judge.

"Nice one, Felix," Isaac said wryly, dusting himself off.

"I didn't know that was going to happen," Felix said, taking a slow step back from the smoking weapon.

"Well… good job figuring it out," Isaac said, slowly, uncertainly.

"Thanks," Felix said, and smiled suddenly. "It was pure luck."

She smiled too, feeling warmth flaring in her heart. Isaac walked past her to the hole in the wall. She turned and peered in again. Who had lived here so long ago? She thought she could make out dim shapes now, formless, menacing outlines in the grey smoke. The orange ball flickered like a candle, half-buried in the ground.

"Surprising," Kraden muttered from a point just behind her right ear. "I wonder if the two objects have a common origin. Most astonishing, certainly. Lord Babi would have been impressed. I wonder if this came from one of the four ancients…"

Over this Mia suddenly caught the sound of Felix's voice. She turned and listened. He was standing by the weapon, talking to the chief of the dwarves again. Even at that distance and under his unruly hair she could see total surprise written on his face.

"Uh, no, that's okay. Thank you, though."

"No, no, I insist! We have no further use for it." The dwarf flicked a finger and a few of the settlers came over. Grunting and straining, they got the entire contraption up in the air, and set off along the path up to the cliff entrance. Felix ran a hand through his hair, betraying his fatigue.

She walked up beside him, watching them slowly climb the slope.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"They're putting that thing on the ship. Not only is there no possible use for it, but Piers is going to have a fit," he said wearily.

"Really?"

He glanced down at her, brown locks sliding across his eyes.

"Oh yes. Don't you remember when they put the wings on?" He looked around behind them. "Is everyone okay down here? I'd better go up there."

"Yeah, sure," she said. "We can look after ourselves."

Was that the trace of a self-conscious smile? Felix strode off at a furious pace, quickly breaking into a run. Up above the dwarven party was just disappearing through the crack in the cliff.

* * *

><p>The only evil of contentment, Mia decided, was not having a lot of very engrossing thoughts. She was in a general sort of warm fog, strolling randomly through the area the magma ball had opened up. A few feet away, Garet and Sheba had their heads close together, bent over the ground. Amused, she stepped over to find out what they were up to.<p>

"What did you find?"

Garet lay in the dirt, his arm buried in the ground up to his shoulder.

"Nothin'… yet," he grunted. "Isaac says… there's something under here though." He fished around, biting his lip.

"I found a worm," Sheba announced brightly. She held it up between blunt, grubby fingers, the creature twisting and squirming. Mia unconsciously took a step back, shuddering.

"Oh… that's… very nice, Sheba."

Garet froze for a split second, his eyes fixed on her. A lightning glance flashed between him and Sheba. Mia shook her head, backing up, as Garet stealthily pulled his tightly closed fist out of the hole.

"You wouldn't dare."

Garet fought to gain control of a tiny smile playing on his lips.

"What?" he asked innocently.

She just watched him, wide-eyed and suspicious. He shifted and she broke and ran – right as Sheba flung the thing at her chest.

"GAH! Stoppit!" she screamed, narrowly avoiding contact. Garet burst out laughing, racing after her. Sheba, stooping quickly to find her weapon, soon joined the chase.

"Stop it stop. Stop!" she yelled, flinging bursts of water over her shoulder at Garet, who dodged them easily. They cut back and forth across the field, racing around the others. Mia dodged behind Isaac, feinting one way, then the other.

"Isaac, make them stop!"

Isaac straightened up.

"Ga-ret…" The reprimand went wholly ignored, and the chase was on for more frantic minutes.

Finally her pursuers slowed down, still mirthful.

"All right, all right, Mia. Truce," Garet said, hands on his knees. She eyed them warily, checking hands and pockets. No more slimy things appeared to be in evidence, so she relaxed.

"That was _so _mean," she complained.

Garet chuckled.

"Yeah, you're right. Sorry." But as he and Sheba turned back to their excavation, Mia swore she saw him slap her hand in triumph. She snorted and folded her arms. Those two needed to be kept apart.

"You are so immature sometimes," she muttered to his back, fighting a tiny smile.

Isaac stretched as Garet passed by him again.

"If you two weren't so busy terrorizing Mia, you'd have found what you were looking for by now," he remarked.

"What are we looking for?" Garet said, a shade rebelliously.

"This," Isaac said. He uncurled his palm to reveal a flat, glinting jewel. Mia drew nearer, attracted by the color as the light played through it.

Garet was unimpressed.

"…What is it?"

"…To be honest, I felt it calling to me… but I don't know what it is," Isaac admitted.

"I do," Sheba said, peering at Isaac's hand from eye level. "Felix or Piers could tell you what it's called, but there's a blacksmith in Osenia who can forge it for you. Make swords, armor…"

"Osenia? That's a long ways from here, though," Isaac said, disappointment replacing momentary curiosity.

"Yeah," Sheba shrugged, "but hold on to it anyway. We'll be back there someday."

As Sheba turned Isaac's hand, catching the light in the stone, Mia caught his eye. Isaac gave her a look filled with the same doubt she felt. A cloud seemed to have passed over the sun high ahead, and she gave a brief shiver. Isaac smiled, trying to encourage her, and Garet smacked his hands together.

"All right. I'll get the other one."

* * *

><p>Felix sighed, unconsciously running his hand through his hair again. He blinked, and scratched his neck. The chain of decisions that had led him to Loho was becoming more tenuous with every second that he passed listening to Piers and the dwarves bicker. He sat high up on the stern of the ship, far enough away to make it clear he wasn't involved but close enough to intervene if a fight broke out. His chest itched where Acheron had torn at him.<p>

"No. It's staying on land," Piers said firmly for the fourth time. The dwarves shrugged and dropped it on the deck with a painful crunch. Felix winced, feeling the ship shift under the weight.

"Get this damn cannon off my ship!" Piers screamed, waving his arms. "You're marking up the deck!" For the second or third time, it occurred to him to wonder whether Piers was quite fully recovered from his illness.

"We don't want it," the dwarf chieftain replied, cracks in his patience beginning to show. "You'll find a use for it."

Piers managed to control his fury. The red of his face contrasted well with his blue hair, Felix thought, chuckling to himself.

"At least move it over there. The ship is unbalanced! Hey!" But the dwarves had already scrambled off the ship as fast as dignity permitted them. Running to the railing, Piers began rattling off a long string of Lemurian invective, only pausing to think up new insults. While Felix didn't know much of the language, the sailor was clearly an old professional – his first pause came at a minute in. When he ran out of breath, he slumped down in defeat, rubbing futilely at a few of the long, deep score marks in the ship's deck.

"I'm glad Sheba hasn't heard you at your finest," Felix remarked idly.

"Sheba doesn't bother me," Piers said wearily. "Starvation doesn't bother me, nor illness, pain, inconvenience, rain, snow, or the dark. But this is my ship." He ran his fingers through the wounds in the wood a few more times.

"Felix, what are we going to do with this thing?" he said bitterly, walking back to where his friend sat. Felix shrugged, standing. He heard a faint whistle in his breath.

"The rate we're going, we might actually need it for something." Rolling back his sleeves, he helped Piers guide it into the center of the foredeck, and did his best to smooth over the gashes the pair of them left behind, carefully kneading the grain of the wood. Normally he enjoyed the living, firm resistance of wood; now it was slow, hard work. The cannon grated inch by inch across the deck.

When they were finished, they collapsed back onto the rail. The sun was beginning to descend. Felix ached in every muscle. He was so tired, so… so tired…

* * *

><p>"So Acheron is gone," Piers said almost casually, leaning back on his arms. Felix kept his mouth shut, trying to stay upright, while Piers tossed him a sharp glance.<p>

"I thought as much," the sailor finally said. "The dark sword lying in the wheelhouse was a fairly obvious clue. Does she know you still have that thing?"

"I didn't know it was going to come back," he said, provoked. The bandage across his ribs itched.

"No," Piers said, "but I bet you suspected it. You're no fool, Felix."

"I'm not going to touch it, Piers," he said. "I won't give up revenge, but I'm not going to touch the sword." That word, that thought, almost seemed to make the wound burn worse. He reached under his shirt discreetly, feeding a bit of healing Psynergy into it.

Piers looked at him oddly. He stared firmly off ahead, tracing the outlines of the cliffs lit by the westering sun.

"A noble gesture," Piers said. "Why are you doing that?"

He sighed and shifted, his breathing shallow and quick. "I don't know. Because I know she's right."

"Lunpa told me a story once, Felix," Piers said absently, "about a Lemurian prophet. He was very famous, and very accurate; the man predicted his own eventual death." After a second, Felix laughed disbelievingly, making eye contact with Piers.

"It was a humorous story," Piers said, smiling in understanding, "but there is a point. Some prophecies are self-fulfilling. I can't help but feel that you're driving yourself into the ground. Who knows? Maybe revenge is all you can live for, because you've made your life so bleak." He raised a finger as Felix stirred. "Let me finish. I know what happened to you, Felix, I've heard the story from places I can feel more sympathy from than from you. Fate and fortune have not done well by you. But I don't believe in fate." He spat over the rail. Felix tried to cut in.

"Piers, I-" …But his friend was holding up a finger.

"Let me tell you another story. It's a story with only two words. My mother."

Felix went perfectly still. His friend had never talked about his mother, not even in sleep. For as long as he lived he would remember that one terrible day in the mocking sunshine, the butterflies dancing over her grave. But even then Piers had resolutely shaken his head when Felix offered assistance. Despairing of a chance to help, he'd shushed Sheba's inquiries, and they'd never discussed it.

"You're not the only one, Felix. It is an ill omen when a man is chosen by the gods, and we have all been chosen. Maybe I've done wrong by you, letting you shoulder all our burdens for so long. If so I am sorry. But you cannot wash your hands of blood in more blood."

Felix stared at the red stains of sunset on the ocean. If Piers brought his mother into this, it was advice to take seriously. Maybe it was time to let it all go.

And then he felt pain, a dull, searing fire up from his chest. He leaned over and turned away from Piers, not wanting his friend to notice. After a second there came a wet trickle seeping down his side, under his clothes.

"Piers," he finally managed to say. "Don't take this from me. I'm going to break." With that, some of the agony lessened, but not enough.

"You're not going to break, Felix. That's what makes you despair. You know you're not weak enough." Felix caught a breath. The pain flared up sharply again. His stifled gasp only made it worse.

"I can't do this," he choked. "I can't take this anymore. I've got nothing left."

"You've got eight people who would die for you," Piers said softly. "Few men are so lucky." After that they fell into silence. Felix tried desperately to control his breathing.

"Forgive me, Felix."

He looked away from the water, confused. Piers hesitated, coughed, and then spoke.

"…Mia… set me an example. Were I as good a friend to you as she, I would have spoken to you of this long ago. Forgive me, Felix. I find that I am old, and weak."

With a heroic effort Felix clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Piers, old friend, there is nothing to forgive." He couldn't find the words to say what he wanted. As if Piers- or anyone - could confront someone during the agony the Lemurian had known.

Piers looked at him for a second and then whipped his gaze out to sea, stifling a suspicious sniff.

Mia, a good friend to him. It was certainly possible. Maybe how she, personally, violently disliked him, personally, had nothing to do with the things a good friend did. It was possible.

_You haven't failed today._ How easily that comforting glow turned to acid in his mouth. He had failed. He always failed.

* * *

><p>The gentle waves rolled up onto shore. Out at the edge of the bay where the land curled in, surf broke in high fury. Felix looked up past the cliffs, the stabbing wound in his chest subsiding to its earlier dull throb. Many miles beyond these rising walls, far from the water and the wet stone, the warm brown mountains rose around Vale.<p>

Odd to think of the pink and white flowers blooming on the mountainside. For it would be spring soon in the rest of the world. He himself was sailing deep into a winter from which he would never return.

As much as he appreciated Mia's help, he still had no answer to his question. He had to get north and save his parents. If he couldn't find a way to get himself killed immediately after that… then what? In any case, as he was now constantly reminded, Acheron was in no hurry to let him go. There wasn't any guarantee he'd live past delivering vengeance.

He shook his head, brushing off the thought. Honestly, he just couldn't let himself think about it. He had to get them safely to Prox. To Prox. That was the goal. Just keep eyes fixed on the goal. Go to Prox.

He wished the pain would stop for just one second so he could think.

Leaving thoughts of his own fate aside for the time being, he retreated to checking their situation for the hundred millionth time. None of the others knew besides himself, Isaac, and Piers, but they were not going to make it all the way north on their remaining fresh water. He'd put in here to restock, but Loho had no water to spare, as an apologetic dwarven quartermaster had explained. Piers knew to make for the last island before the Northern Reaches. They'd gone over this more than enough times. Everyone was healthy and in reasonably good spirits – hah, that was a lie. About half of them were in good spirits. For some reason it felt like he was forgetting something, but he couldn't think what it might be. He felt slow and thick. He shifted, and tried again to stop the bleeding, knowing it was useless.

"She likes you, you know."

Felix was stirred out of his meditation. Lost as he'd been, it took him a second to swim back to the surface.

"What?"

"Mia likes you," Piers said, watching her pick her way across the beach to the ship. Felix laughed painfully, making his disbelief clear. Piers was his only friend, but sometimes the Lemurian said these _things._

Piers shook his head.

"I wouldn't be so sure, Felix."

"Whatever you say," Felix said, and dismissed it. The very idea was absurd.

Beneath their feet, Mia began to scale the side of the ship; when her head poked over the side he grasped her hand and pulled her up.

"Hi, Felix," she said, smoothing down her dress and smiling. "I was going to get some washing done while we're on land."

He smiled unconsciously. She was so _helpful_. Despite everything. It was the final touch of lunacy on this whole insane comedy.

"Mia, the sun is going to set in about ten minutes."

She looked out to sea, and glanced back to him slightly flustered.

"Yes, but I thought I could just…"

"If you really want to, you can do it in the morning," he said, doing his best to be kind over the punishing beat of his heart. Gravelly and harsh came all too naturally. "We'll stay the night."

Mia smiled, clasping her hands together.

"Okay. I'll go tell the others. Isaac has money."

"On that subject… tell them to stay out of trouble," Felix said. "I suspect we're not exactly well-loved around here."

Mia looked away.

"Um, yeah, Garet kind of… figured that out already." She looked him in the eye and forestalled his next question. "He was digging somewhere he apparently wasn't supposed to, and got chased off. We'll lie low."

Felix nodded.

"All right. Piers and I will stay with the ship."

"I'll just get a few things," she said, making for the cabin door.

* * *

><p>The precise instant it closed behind her Felix became aware that Piers was directing a very significant look at him.<p>

"Well?" he said irritably.

"Well?" Piers said smoothly.

"Piers, knock it off," he said. "I'm trying not to hurt her feelings. I've abused the rest of you enough already." He turned away and began slowly tidying the deck, clearing gear fouled by the passage, coiling ropes and untangling knots. Behind him he heard Piers washing down the deck.

"You don't talk to me that nicely," Piers commented. Felix paused.

"That's because you're so annoying," he said under his breath, and resumed cleaning.

"I heard that. She's pretty cute, isn't she?"

Felix turned around, very nearly fed up with Piers' juvenile behavior, and almost fell over with the effort.

"I don't-"

"Who's pretty cute?"

Mia was standing in front of the open door, looking back and forth between them. At one end of the ship, Piers was seized with a sudden coughing fit which sounded suspiciously like laughter. At the bow, Felix attempted to kill him with a look, but couldn't summon the effort.

"No one," he ground out. Not surprisingly, Mia wasn't satisfied with this, so he quickly turned back around before the questions could start. If he heard Piers start whispering to Mia he swore he would murder him.

"Well, um, good night then," she finally said.

"*ahem* Good night," Piers said.

"Good night," he grunted over his shoulder. He still had something important to tell Mia. Sheba had interrupted them earlier. …But Piers was here now, still trying to subdue his mirth, and hearing Felix ask for a private talk with Mia was the last encouragement he needed. It would have to wait. While he was still deliberating Mia scraped down the ladder and was gone.

"So you'll let them stay out there, huh?"

"We won't get much farther tonight," Felix said. He stared out across the stones. Alex was walking back up to the settlement, long blue hair waving in the sunset. Wait, no, that was Mia. Or was it Alex? Menardi always cracked jokes about his girly hair when he wasn't listening. He smiled.

Piers' face swam into sight.

"Hey, Felix!" He paused and frowned. "You don't look very good."

There were little fireflies floating at the edge of Felix's vision. They vanished when he tried to look at them.

"I'm going to go…sleep," he muttered, summoning the last of his consciousness. Carefully navigating through the oddly tiny door, he stumbled down the cabin stairs and looked down the long hallway. His bedroom was right past Saturos', on the… the right side. He made it as far as the door of the bedroom, and then the universe filled his eyes, black and full of stars.

* * *

><p>Mia strolled lazily to the crest of the long ramp into the mines and stopped. From right here near the top, she could see across the very top of a vast orange-stained forest, rolling up, miles and miles away, into a golden snowcapped peak. Beyond that one single spire the mountains rose in bold ranks, sinking off into the distance. Somewhere, nestled among their feet, lay Isaac's home, Felix's home. Somewhere far beyond that, across long lonely stretches of barren waste, lay her home of Imil. She was in no hurry to leave a sight so breathtaking, and for a second was content just to let the splendor of the scene overwhelm her. Once again she knew the weight of all the miles they'd trod. Now, though, that reflection was added to by the knowledge that the end was near.<p>

In this tiny excavation, the last remains of a civilization desperately clinging to this barren coast, she could feel the final lighthouse looming. They were too close for comfort now, and their voyage was turning back into the grim race it always had been. But finally she shook it off. Tonight was a respite from the ocean, from the world, from the Lighthouses, and she would take advantage of it. The clouds above gradually fell from burning red to purple. When her legs began to ache she sat against the wall of the cliff, drawing her knees into her, and turned her eyes upward. At last the stars began to shine through the last rags of sky, and she stirred. A small figure was making its way up the path toward her, and she saw it was Sheba, arms folded tightly against her.

She was just about to call out when the younger girl caught sight of her and came over.

"Hi, Mia," she said, clearly tired.

"Hi yourself," Mia said fondly. "Going to the ship?"

"Yeah. I'd…I'd rather sleep there. Isaac said it's okay," she pleaded.

"It's fine, Sheba. Sleep wherever you want. Can you get back by yourself?" Mia asked.

"Yeah, I'll be okay," she said, but the unnerving thought of the dark, quiet beach was hiding behind her eyes. Mia stood up, brushing herself off.

"I'll walk with you. Do you mind?"

"…Uh, if you want to, I guess," Sheba said with unconcealed relief.

They proceeded down the dark, close tunnel together, opening out onto the rocky shore. Mia smiled at the sound of the surf, eternally lapping at the land. The dark bulk of the ship crouched on the pebbles, silhouetted against the ocean. Together they walked in silence, proceeding until the long ladder up the ship loomed over their heads. Then Sheba turned to her.

"I'll be okay from here."

"All right," she said. "Good night, Sheba."

"Good night, Mia," Sheba said sleepily, lifting herself aloft in a flash of purple. Mia blinked. Some trick she must have picked up along the way. That was probably frequently useful.

Mia turned off the ramp, the only sounds her footsteps and the quiet chink of a hammer somewhere in the depths of the mine. Here and there, single torches burned, creating a peaceful, if slightly eerie effect. She walked toward the door of the inn. Underneath the lamp outside, Isaac leaned against the wall, his shadow flaring out before him. He nodded warmly as she came up to him.

"Hey, Mia."

"Hi, Isaac." She looked around. "Where's Jenna?"

"Playing cards with Garet, as far as I know," he said. Then he smiled, and she envied Jenna the quiet, comfortable bliss that it showed. "We caught up with each other earlier today."

"That's nice," she said. She pushed her shoulders into the wall next to him, looking out over Loho.

"So, how have you been, Isaac?" she asked.

"I'm doing okay," he said thoughtfully. "How about you?"

"Much better, as of very recently," she smiled. The darkness ebbed and flowed around their little pool of light.

"I've been thinking about him. Do you remember when we learned he'd survived?" Isaac said.

"Yeah, I do." They hadn't known what to do with themselves, after Venus Lighthouse. They'd seen the ancient stones crumble to the ground, made the heart-pounding race through the door and out to safe ground. And then…they'd just stayed in Lalivero. No one questioned Isaac's unwillingness to just begin the trek home. It was as if they'd known they weren't through yet.

"And Ivan felt him, that night."

They'd scrambled along the plateau, crossed the strait, run for days as if lives depended on it through the great forests and sands. And they'd reached the little spit of land, and Felix had been gone, his tracks long cold.

"Yeah, I remember." She remembered.

"You know, Mia, I realized the other day. We succeeded after all. We caught up to him."

She smiled.

"So we did, Isaac. So we did."

He sighed.

"I'm glad he's got rid of that thing. Even after all he's done… when we were up on the lighthouse, and I thought…I thought he was gone…" he trailed off, unable to finish. Mia looked at him in concern.

"Isaac, we went over all this dozens of times. Why bring it up again?"

"I don't know," he said. "Sometimes I just need to talk about it." He sighed again. "I – I've just been thinking a lot lately." Mia controlled the urge to ruffle his hair. It came and went.

Before he could continue she cut him off. His words had brought up something she had to say.

"Isaac," she said. "Haven't you noticed how much he's changed, even in these few days?"

"I actually have," he said, smiling at some inner joke. "Why?"

"I…I need your help, Isaac." This was so hard to say. "He's… I think he's going to try to die somewhere before this is all over." She felt a suspicious hotness behind her eyes. Isaac sighed.

"So you know about that as well. I suspected something like that."

She pushed down the emotion threatening to overwhelm her and swallowed.

"Isaac, please. I want… I want to bring him back …with us."

She felt Isaac's hand catch hers up, felt his gentle pressure.

"We will, Mia. I promise." He squeezed and then let go, and they stood side by side in the dark, watching the torches burn.

"You saw him on the ship just now, right?" Isaac asked. "How did he look?"

"He's got something on his mind again," she said. "I could tell he wasn't really listening to me."

"Whatever it is," Isaac said with a slight chuckle, "I'm sure you'll get it out of him."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, turning and looking up into his face.  
>"Nothing, nothing. Just an observation," Isaac said. Not knowing exactly what she wanted to force out of him, she let it sink to rest. At least, she tried to – then she noticed that some part of her was having an entirely different reaction to Isaac's teasing. Mia sunk into a furious argument with herself, trying to crush the feeling every time it bobbed up. Trying to stay angry and aloof, and realizing she was losing. Finally Isaac saved her with a breath.<p>

"I used to look up to him so much," he whispered. "And I think" – his voice grew audible "-I was silly. I know. But I always thought, in the back of my mind, that he wasn't really going along with them, that everything was going to work out. He'd take it off my hands and explain it all and we'd all go home."

"I know what you mean, Isaac," she said softly.

"So really I just didn't want to have to grow up," he said sarcastically.

"None of us did," she said. "I didn't either." And with those words the tears that had been threatening her earlier finally filled her eyes. She couldn't speak another word. Isaac rubbed her shoulder in sympathy.

"…I'm sorry, Isaac," she managed to say after a while.

"It's okay, Mia," he said, dropping his hand. "It's tough for all of us."

"Do you think we're going to make it?" she said.

"Of _course_ we are, Mia," he said reassuringly. "We're all on the same side now. Nothing's going to be able to stop us." She thought of Piers' lifeless body, her attempts to heal him in vain, but nevertheless was comforted.

"I'm done whining," he finally said. "Let's go in. We can talk to the others." Taking her by the arm, he led her in to the warmth of the building.

Jenna was fast asleep, as it turned out. Garet explained that it was the effect of not being on the water anymore, and proved his point with a huge yawn.

"Makes us feel a lot safer."

"Well, before you go to bed, Garet, I wanted to talk to you guys," Isaac said.

"Nah, nah, I'm awake," Garet said, blinking. Ivan sat up in the corner.

"Listen, I was just talking with Mia, and I kinda realized something. We're all still friends. We're a band of heroes, right?" he said, smiling. "We've got to stick together, you guys, now more than ever. There's less than a hundred miles of this left. We can do it." His voice rose in energy as he spoke. Garet raised a fist.

"That's the spirit. I'm with you, buddy."

Ivan nodded. When she looked around, she saw a hint of the old fire in their eyes.

"We're all still in this," Isaac said. "Felix and the others need our help, and we're a team from now on. Felix got rid of the sword. He's willing to meet us, and we're taking him up on it. All right?" He looked around.

"Put your hands in here."

She laid her hand on his, felt it covered by Garet's huge warm palm, Ivan's frail hand on top. And in that moment, as silly as it sounded, she really felt cheered. The dark ghosts circling around them had been beaten off for this short space of time. She found a seat in the corner, Garet slumping back down onto his bed and Ivan resuming his spot on the floor.

"Thanks, guys," Isaac said, looking as heartened as she felt.

* * *

><p>"Hey, so," Garet said. "We're all here together for once. Let's talk about something more fun."<p>

"What did you have in mind?" Isaac asked, playing the straight man.

"How about that time Mia took a bath in public in the middle of the day?" Garet said mischievously.

"Ugh." She dropped her head into her palms. "Won't you ever stop going on about that?"

"Greatest day of my life," Garet said. "So far. That poor innkeeper didn't know whether to run us out of town or sell tickets."

Isaac chuckled.

"It wasn't the middle of the day," she said, knowing she was blushing. "It was seven o'clock in the morning. The sun was barely up."

"Details," Garet said dismissively.

"And I _wasn't _in public. There was a spring right behind the inn," she said.

"Which was used for drinking water," Isaac said, laughing.

"I didn't know that, okay? There was no one else awake in the whole town!"

"Except for the …innkeeper…hahaha, oh gods," Garet hooted, rolling flat on his back laughing hysterically. To his credit, Isaac was at least trying to control himself.

"Oh yeah?" she shot back. "I can think of hundreds of stupid things you did. How about that time you guys tried to _build_ a ship?"

"What, the _Drunken Lily_ (may she rest in peace)?" Garet said, sitting up. "Hey, how were we supposed to know there was a ferry across the Kalay Sea, huh?"

"Go to the _office_, where, you know, they sell tickets?" she said. "Like I did?"

"Listen," Ivan said, "That was the greatest ship ever built with no hand tools or previous experience. May she rest in peace."

"Yeah, we did a great job on that thing," Isaac said. "We were working on oars."

"When it _sank_," Mia said. The other three put a hand over their hearts in unison.

"May she rest in peace," they intoned.

"While I bought us tickets on the ship that didn't sink when you tried to use it. Also singlehandedly picked a rowing crew."

Garet looked up.

"You know what? That hurts, Mia. You leave me no choice but to bring up… the _Lamakan Desert_."

Mia groaned. She should know better than to keep getting sucked into this argument. Garet had rehearsed this scene so many times he was pretty good at acting it by now - in the most extravagantly dramatic way possible.

"OH," he moaned, rocking around and tearing at the collar of his shirt, "I'm SO SWEATY AND HOT!"

Ivan smiled despite himself.

"PLEASE, SOMEONE, FETCH MY CHANGE OF CLOTHES! WATTTEEEEEERRRR! OH NO, IT'S ACTUALLY A GIANT BUG! HELP!"

She did her best to stand on her dignity, but faced with Garet at his finest the footing was slippery indeed. Finally she broke down and laughed along with the others, and Garet immediately desisted, breaking out into his hearty guffaw.

"Ahhahaha, that was _wonderful_. Oop- what?" He reached out behind him and pulled a plump Mars Djinn out on his palm. "Knock it off, you." The creature disappeared in a flash of light. They laughed for a bit longer, lapsing into a comfortable silence.

* * *

><p>"So," she said eventually, thinking to her talk with Isaac earlier. "What do you guys want to do when this is all over?"<p>

They shifted thoughtfully.

"I'd like to find a girl, settle down," Garet said.

"Oh really?" Mia said, grinning. "Anyone in mind?"

He shook his head.

"Nope. Not yet. It's not exactly unrealistic, though. I am supposed to be the mayor of Vale after this."

She'd almost forgotten. Garet hadn't mentioned that in a long time.

"Oh yeah," Isaac said, "You were supposed to be learning about life this whole time. Too bad you haven't learned anything."

"I learned not to bathe in public," Garet shot back. Isaac started laughing again.

"Yeah, when you're the Mayor, don't do that. Good life lesson, buddy." He sighed. "Besides, you're not going anywhere until you fix Kay's flower garden."

"That was two years ago!" Garet said indignantly, shooting up in his seat. "She's probably…okay, she probably _hasn't_ forgotten all about it, but still."

Mia turned to Ivan.

"Ivan, what are you going to do? Are you going back to Master Hammet?"

Ivan jumped and shook his head, startled out of his thoughts.

"Oh! …Um, no. No," he said, with definite relief.

"Because I thought earlier when I asked you…"

"That was before we'd met my sister," he said with a soft grin. "Now I have somewhere much better to go."

She smiled and let him sink back into oblivion.

He didn't speak again until they'd turned out the lights and lay in the warm, close darkness together. Then Ivan cleared his throat, breaking her still reflections.

"Isaac, about what you said when you came in."

"…Yeah?" came Isaac's voice.

"We're not exactly going to get a parade when we reach home, you know."

In the silence that followed she felt a chill across her cheek.

"We're all in this with Felix, whether we'd like to be or not. For what it's worth, I believe him, but-"

"Shut up, Ivan," Isaac burst out roughly.

In the silence that followed _that _she felt a hard lump of ice drop into her stomach. She sat up, throwing off her blanket at about the same time Garet and Isaac did.

"What was that for?" Garet demanded.

"I-I'm sorry, Ivan," Isaac mumbled, sheepish. "It's just… that oath. It's been on my mind a lot lately."

"Oh," Garet's silhouette said, the anger abruptly drained from his tone. He flopped back down into bed. "Oh. I …kinda forgot about that."

Isaac wrapped his hands around his knees.

"Yeah, Garet," said Ivan. "Isaac, I don't blame you. I should have trusted you to think about it. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Isaac said.

Mia frowned. Isaac had sworn …to stop Felix. Dear Mercury, not this again.

"So, wait, we're not going to light the lighthouse after all this?"

"No, we are," Isaac said heavily. "But as Ivan pointed out, it's not as simple as I could have wished." He rolled over onto his side.

"What are we gonna do?" Garet asked.  
>"…Honestly? I don't have any idea." Isaac chuckled bitterly. "Maybe we can wait at the bottom of the lighthouse and race up the steps at the last second."<p>

Silence fell.

"I'm sorry, Ivan," Isaac said.

"It's okay, Isaac."

Mia sat curled up just a bit longer, and then lay back down, staring up into the colder, more unfriendly darkness. She rolled one hand into a fist. It just wasn't fair.

* * *

><p>Thanks for reading.<p>

A couple notes on the quotations. First, you'd be surprised how much dialogue, period, there is in these games. There's a lot. I remembered it as being mostly silent, but I'm wrong.

Second, you'd be surprised how much of that dialogue is perfectly appropriate to the themes and ideas I'm doing a terrible job exploring. I've got literally four pages of quotes from mains, minors, and angsty, sorrowful, desperately hopeful NPCs, most of which I will never use. I'm considering posting the leftovers as an epilogue of sorts.

R&R please.


	15. Cold

__A little something for the ever-patient and the long-suffering. This old dog has some life left yet.  
>Thanks to all who favorited the story or author subscribed and all that good stuff. Thanks to<strong> Droory<strong> and **JamesK716** for reviewing this. I appreciate your kind words - they really are the impetus to finish.

Without further ado -

* * *

><p><em><em>

Catharsis

Cold

_I wish that I'd met you under different circumstances...  
>– Briggs, TLA<em>

_I am starting to feel that this is only a beginning.  
>– Kolima Healer<em>

Sunrise came wet and mist-shrouded. Mia stirred in the early stillness, and woke silently and completely. Ivan's bed was rumpled and deserted. Garet was still asleep, Isaac wrapped in a shroud from head to toe right next to him. Red hair escaping from one final cot marked Jenna. Mia shivered slightly, feeling chill cut through to her bones. It was cold.

Outside the blue remnants of fires were being coaxed back to life, ashes stirred and sparks struck. She walked up the pale ramp slowly, watching the thin smoke curl into the air around her. At the top, she turned, and saw the forest dark and deep, covered in pieces of fog like cobwebs. Behind her lay the crack in the cliff once more, the light a narrow triangle at the far side.

She thought it was worth a trip down to the shore, if only to watch the sea rolling in under the white mist. The ship sat in its moorings, dark and silent. Somehow she felt confident Felix would be up already. Sleep was no refuge for him. She'd find out what this morning would hold, and talking to someone was better than sitting alone waiting for the others to wake. But what had at last propelled her up the long walk was the remembered clothing pushed into one corner of her room. In this temperature, that came first. The ocean was freezing cold as she splashed gingerly to the side of the ship.

For all its awkward angles and steep curve, the ladder cut into the side of Piers' vessel was not impossible to use. It took a bit of practice, but she'd nearly discovered the trick to scrambling up. Her fingers bit pleasantly into the salt-tanned wood, knuckles turning white. One could almost say she was a real sailor now, tough and bronze and wise in the mysteries of the seas. A laugh escaped her, and she hung limp for a second, halfway up, to grin and blow the hair from her eyes. The Sea. The Sea was calling. She pushed both palms flat on the last rung and heaved herself up. Atop the slick, slightly canted deck, there was no movement of any kind. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, smiling, and walked back to the cabin door.

In the cabin no life stirred either. The golden wood and the blue rugs kept their secrets. She began to wonder if Felix was actually still asleep somehow. She'd been under the forgivable impression that he never closed his eyes at all. Slowly, she took the stairs to the lower floor, making the least noise possible. Still wondering at the silence, she reached for her door. Right as she touched it the door opened, indistinct mumbling spilling out.

"Unh, I'm tired. Oh!"

She stepped back in an instant panic, staring at Piers.

"I'm glad you're here," he said, trying to shake off lethargy.

"What-what happened?" she asked, afraid to hear the answer. He was fatigued and disheveled in the extreme. Even when dead Piers had never looked this slovenly.

"Heh, don't worry about me," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "I need your help with Felix."

She pushed past him without another word, having spotted Sheba bent over a bundle in bed.

"He's not dead, I hope," she said as matter-of-factly as she could.

"Not dead," Sheba said, looking up from Felix's face. "But he's out cold."

She leaned over him carefully. Sheba had brushed the hair off his face. Even in repose he looked like a wolf.

"Do you know what happened?"

"I came down to sleep last night and he was on his face outside. I called Piers down and we got him into bed and he's been asleep ever since," Sheba recounted. She spun on Piers.

"What? Why didn't you get me?"

Piers was the picture of innocent confusion.

"I…I… I'm sorry Mia. I took his watch to let him sleep – I thought he was in bed… and when Sheba found him we put him in here to rest."

She took a deep breath. What was anger at Piers going to accomplish?

"Sorry, Piers. I didn't mean that. Just… please get me if anything happens in the future."

Please. Oh gods.

Piers shook his head, fatigue making him brusque.

"Mia, he's just sleeping. I think he's just tired. He hasn't slept in two days."

Sheba glanced back and forth between the two of them, small and nervous.

She turned back to the bedside, stretching a hand out to her friend.

"We'll see."

A touch flung her down into the depths. She saw the lines for just a second, the paths she had healed in him earlier. Then she felt the void.

Felix was hollow. Inside him there was a vast, swirling abyss, a cold and frozen hole. Winds blew from every direction, tearing her about. She quickly lost all sense of direction, stumbling and falling. The ground gave out suddenly, and she was really falling, weightlessness shoving her heart into her throat. The blackness rose up and threatened to swallow her whole.

She fell back on the floor of the room with a gasp, landing on her elbows. Quickly she scrambled to her feet. Felix stayed as still and peaceful as before, not betraying a hint of the chaos within him.

"I think it's best to let him sleep for now," she said, and ran for the upper deck.

Clutching the rail with both hands, she whispered a prayer, waiting for her vertigo to settle.

Dear gods, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, what had that been. What had that been. Never before in her life had she felt so terrified. _Why_ was there a hurricane in Felix's chest. Why. Why.

Someone pounded up the stairs from behind her.

"Mia! Are you all right!?"

She stayed put, unable to trust her expression.

"I'm fine, Piers."

He cleared his throat.

"Mia, I'm sorry about…"

"Forget it, Piers," she said. "The fault was mine. I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"So is he wounded?" he said anxiously.

"No. …Well, I don't know." She turned. "Piers, there's some kind of… there was a cloud inside him, this disturbance. But I thought we got rid of that."

Piers looked away. He looked stern in profile, like a statue.

"Do you think it's the same thing?" he asked. "As before."

"Well – no, I'm not sure," she said. "…I don't think so. He honestly seemed happier recently."

"So he did," Piers muttered.

"I know," she said, inspired. "I'll ask Ivan. He could feel…_it, _you know. If it's still there he'll know." She shivered. After all that she'd forgotten to get her warm cloak.

Dear gods. She felt as if she would never be warm again. Mia dug her nails into the rail, trying to keep from noticeably shivering. The tremors were becoming violent. She could have never been warm again.

"Well," Piers said, "We unfortunately can't waste any more time here. Not that I really want to."

Mia nodded, shoulders twitching. She gritted her teeth and brought some measure of control to her upper body. It was over, done. She was out of danger.

"We'll get everyone back here, get some food, and head out north," he said.

Mia blew out a breath. North. She looked out into the thinning mist, thinking of snow and ice and fire. She chafed her hands as if cold already had her fingers.

"Are you ready for this, Piers?"

"To be honest," Piers said, crossing his forearms on the rail next to her, "It's easier for me than for any of you. We light this beacon, and hopefully my people will begin to come out of their long slumber. Maybe I can go back there someday. I have much to gain, and nothing to lose."

"Except for the possibility we might accidentally destroy Weyard," she said.

"Every man dies someday, my dear," Piers said. "It's more exciting this way."

What? She actually had to check and make sure he was serious.

"Piers, you are crazy."

"I think it helps," he said with black gusto. "They will write songs about you and I, Mia, songs of our joy and strength and fey recklessness."

She smiled, somewhat lacking the full bravado of the true sailor. Piers was a man of the sea. Perhaps she would never be.

"Every word of that song will be a lie. And if I find out you wrote it, Piers, you irrepressible Lemurian, I will have words with you."

He laughed.

"Fortunately I have a flying ship and you do not. I need not fear your wrath."

"All the same, you would be wise not to provoke it," she retorted.

"Provoke Mia?" Garet said, poking his head over the other side of the ship. "Watch your back, Piers, she might sprinkle water on you."

She snorted as he hauled himself upright.

"You, mister, are getting ice in your bed every morning for the rest of this trip."

"My, she _is_ feisty today," Garet observed to the air. Threats bounced off him like pillows.

"Where are the others?" Piers asked, pushing off the rail toward him.

"Back at the inn, eating breakfast. I was volunteered to come get you," he griped. "So hurry up and bring money. I'm starving."

Mia looked at Piers.

"I'll get Sheba," she said, and ducked below.

* * *

><p>Felix was still silent, far from the land of the living. She paused for just a second to watch him, making sure he was actually breathing.<p>

What was in there? The shivering started again, and she reached over to her trunk, pulled out the thickest fur she could find, and wrapped herself thoroughly. Sheba, still sitting by Felix's feet, watched with raised eyebrow but made no comment. It felt good to be in fur again. She was warm.

Sheba came at a gesture and they headed back up to the windy morning with all the others.

* * *

><p>Breakfast was a noisy, clattering affair, the adepts all serving themselves from plates along the spine of a long table. Most of the dwarves in the settlement sat among them, consuming bread, meat and beer with firm attention. Mia left most of the solider fare alone, spreading butter on a slice of bread for herself. She picked at it and listened idly to the low buzz of chatter around her: laughter, insults, comparison of finds, technical discussions of digging and construction. Some other day she might be interested, but Felix needed help. She fidgeted restlessly.<p>

"Something the matter, Mia?" Isaac asked.

"…Mm."

"What is it?"

"Oh, nothing," she said, avoiding his eyes. What could she even do for him anyway? Falling on the floor helped no one. And the healing paths only appeared for a second. And she never, ever, ever wanted to feel even a hint of that black gust ever again.

At the very least she could sit by him, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. She toyed with her bread, getting a smudge of butter on her fingers. Even the feel of food was making her ill. She wiped it off quickly on a napkin, looked away, and breathed.

Felix deserved that much from her. If she didn't touch him she knew she would be fine. She knew with a stomach full of lead that she was going to give in. She ardently hoped that someone, somewhere was taking notice of this and balancing it against the time she snapped at Isaac when the fire went out.

At long last she looked up to see Piers standing behind the other side of the table, above the diners. He was studying her with an understanding look.

"I'm going back to the ship, if you want to come."

She stood instantly, grateful for the relief.

Outside the air was still chilly. They walked side by side, destiny again settling on their shoulders. Mia mentally waved farewell to everything she passed, the two-days-familiar stones and clay. There were no children in Loho, she realized.

"You enjoy the snow, don't you?"

She looked up to the path.

"Yes, I do," she said. "Grew up in Imil, right?"

"Of course," Piers said. "You'll have fun the next few days, then."

Snow. She would see snow again. Somehow that detail made Prox seem close enough to touch.

Their footsteps rang hollow in the tunnel out to the beach. There were no torches now, but the light from the water played weirdly on the walls.

"Piers," she said after an interval. "Do you think Felix is okay?"

"I think so," he said. "I certainly hope so. Odds are that he's just sleeping it all off. There's a lot that's happened to him in the last score of hours, after all." But he knew and she knew that Felix would sleep when death finally claimed him and not a second before. And she thought privately that Piers did not sound like a man who trusted odds.

"Piers, do you know what's wrong with him?" she asked, plagued by something she couldn't name.

"Um, no," he said, looking fixedly ahead. "Nothing should be wrong with him. He threw away the sword, right?"

Wholly convinced of nothing except Piers' failure to tell the whole truth, she changed the subject.

"Piers?"

"Yes?"

"Do you… Did you mean it when you said Felix… that he… liked me?"

She hung attentively on his replying silence. She would blush and rage later.

"…I did," he finally said. But privately she thought he sounded like a man praying for good odds. They reached the ship without another word exchanged.

Felix had not yet awakened. By common, unspoken consent, Piers was not wanted where she waited; she kept watch alone while he readied for departure above.

_Oh, Felix, what is going on in there?_ she wondered. He looked peaceful and still enough, no worse than usual. Had this been here all along? With just a hint of reluctance, she brushed the hair back from his eyes, observing the change it made in his appearance; relieved that nothing happened. Was he wounded, or sick, or just tired? Was she watching him die here in this bed? She shivered at the thought. Of his own free will he would never slip away like this, his work unfinished. Maybe something had come to take him, but it would have to be deep and powerful to master his will. Ivan had been right. There was something about Felix that not even death dared to cross. But he was pale as ice and cold, and death could not be very far away.

When was the last time she'd seen him eat? She ran a hand down his chest, smoothing out his wrinkled clothes. Who knew where he'd found these old, stained and dark rags? "Rags" was the wrong word, she realized, feeling the tight, thick stitches. Dirty and ancient they might be, but they were also sturdy and well-made. Maybe he'd been given them by his mother. Almost immediately she realized that path was a mistake, unwanted tears welling up in her eyes. She looked away, blinking, and then looked back down, studying his face.

* * *

><p>The dragons swirled and fought, crashing together and tearing apart. The red tower stood alone. A black haze covered her vision, and she could see nothing, feel nothing. Alex turned and would not meet her gaze.<p>

* * *

><p>Mia stirred and blinked. Something had just crashed to the ground. She looked sleepily around for the source of the noise, and found someone's Mars Djinn sitting in a pile of junk spilling from an open closet. It scurried off before she could do anything, and she yawned and stretched. Felix was gone, his empty bed rumpled.<p>

Out in the hallway nothing seemed changed, but she caught voices from upstairs. The ship was swaying again; she could hear water lapping against the hull. Piers was not wasting any time, it seemed.

In the cabin Felix was making his way to the door, Isaac watching him from his seat at the table.

"How do you do watches?" Isaac asked. About to come out, she stayed in the shadow of the stairwell, holding her breath. The conversation looked much different from the level of their boots.

Felix paused and answered warily.

"Uh, Piers and I usually take turns," he said. "Every six hours."

"I'll do it," Isaac said, scraping his chair back and getting up. "Get some sleep, Felix."

By his lack of a reaction, Felix had no idea how to respond to this exchange. Mia stifled a chuckle. Even as she watched, he swayed a bit, trying to make up his mind.  
>"I know how to steer the ship, Felix, I did it in a hurricane," Isaac said patiently, mistaking his silence for disapproval. But fatigue abruptly won.<p>

"…Thanks," Felix said. "Piers is on deck if you need anything." Free from trying to conceal his exhaustion, he spun on his heel and made purposefully for the stairs. Mia darted off quickly, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping. She pulled open the library door and ducked inside. Felix's boots tramped by a little while later.

As the beating of her heart slowed down, Mia looked around and considered. With no one dying at present her role on board was limited. She began flipping idly through Piers' logbooks, grinning to herself at the handwriting. Two scripts alternated, a round and careful hand and a bolder, slashing scrawl. Eventually she read the edge of the page. The strokes like sword cuts were Felix's, and the baby-faced letters were Piers'. In the margins lay the text of a jocular argument the two had been having, about …eight months previous, concerning respective sailing ability and a minor point of navigation. Each had written the day's observations and then a clever insult. By matching caricature with personality, she could figure out who had written what. She could just picture them, standing all day at the wheel, saving up smart remarks.

* * *

><p>Isaac was always poking into books, everywhere they went. He was the most curious boy she'd ever seen, although his eyes were too old to be wide anymore. Always, quietly, unobtrusively, he'd have his nose in someone's bookshelf or someone's oven. At first she'd been horrified and spent many a trembling heartbeat poking him hard. But Garet only ever reacted with a patient sigh, and over time it had turned into a game.<p>

At first she'd wondered how he could be interested in anything, especially the weird cookbooks and histories he usually pulled out, when the lighthouses hung so close over all their heads. But that was just survival, right? Over time it had become clear that it was suicide to think only big thoughts, to live in castles in the clouds. She'd known that already. Sometimes people thought too long and too deeply, and they never came back quite the same. Something was broken, or twisted, or missing. They headed off, setting bridges alight as they went, looking for treasure or mystery or self or adventure or who knew what. Without even a note.

Isaac had taught her that much, that little bit of wisdom. There was another way, a way that involved looking a little silly sometimes. Of… of _purposely_ looking foolish. It had taken her a long, long time to understand that. He would do it on purpose, pick the silliest books or go poking his head in vases. When the laughter came, there had always been something in the set of his smile that had finally, after many months on the road, made sense to her one late night when the moon was up.

So she'd started following his lead, like she did in everything else. It had been too long since she'd played a game for such low stakes. She poked her head in, tried to find the same passages he'd read and quote them to him later. Tried to beat him to the odd coin or herb, and flip them back in when no one was looking, the way he did.

Come to think of it, maybe that was when her interest in cooking had begun. She laughed out loud. There had been a time when they'd both been chased out of a house with a broom, to meet Garet and Ivan's astonishment with gales of uncontrollable laughter. Something had smelled good, Isaac had shouted, rolling on the ground. That had brought her to tears, almost. Her ribs had hurt for days. It _had_ smelled good, so she'd snuck back in later and copied a handful of recipes laying around. Nothing ever came out quite that same way, but she did improve.

It was good not to be a savior. Just a kid no one knew, getting in some harmless trouble.

* * *

><p>The ship bucked under her feet in a direction she wasn't waiting for, and she caught herself on the table. The book's wide pages had crumpled under her panicked fingers. This wasn't a nursery tale or an almanac. Just a ledger filled with notes she couldn't understand, and a cute history that the present's pain stained with sadness. How far they had all fallen.<p>

Snapping the book shut, she mounted the stairs.

The main cabin had changed hands completely in her absence.

Piers sat in a chair, head balanced on his fist, staring into space. Jenna and Garet were cross-legged on the floor, playing some game with pebbles. She took a chair across from him, leaning her head against one of the high wings.

The central concern on her mind was the same it had been for weeks now. And now, this …how could she cure something like this? This was a sickness of the soul. It ran deep and it ran dark, and she was grimly sure that no Mercury art ever invented would patch it over. Nothing she could do would save Felix, if he really was dying. It hurt to be helpless.

A stone clicked sharply to the floor. There was an odd-looking pointed circle drawn on the wood with chalk, stones lying at key intersections of the design. Garet was playing white and Jenna had black. She'd never seen anything like it, and Garet had never mentioned it. Maybe he'd forgotten some childhood sport.

"Did I ever tell you the story of how I met Felix?" Piers said.

"No." She idly looked over at him, but he was still observing some distant point.

"When I first saw Felix," he said, "I was in prison. Not the most auspicious beginning." He smiled at the memory. "I was very confused, and I wanted to go back to Lemuria. No one could blame me for that."

A stone fell from Garet's hand with a clatter, neither player noticing. Piers sighed, and a curtain fell across his brilliant gold eyes.

"I did a great many things I regret now. How can I even begin to sum up the mistakes I made? I was terrified. I allowed myself to feel anger, and I injured a helpless, ignorant man. I hate even to say it, but I may even have been under the impression that the proud name of Lemuria justified my conduct."

Garet was staring in an open confusion she understood at once. But – far more intriguing – Jenna also studied Piers, with a gentle pity that took years off the hard lines in her face.

"The uppermost thing on my mind was returning to my home, to the sanctuary I had always known. In Lemuria I would be safe from this unkind, dying world, full of violence, hatred, and sorrow. So I languished in prison and I felt sorry for myself. Then I was released, and I followed the trail of my stolen orb, my most precious possession."

She was surprised yet again by the ever-changing vitality Piers could display. Where had this facetious irony come from? Felix must have played some part; she recognized the sound.

"Imagine, then," he said, sitting up, resting his chin on entwined knuckles. "Imagine my surprise, on a warm dark night in the heart of savage Gondowan, frustrated and alone, when Felix showed up."

…That was unexpected. Piers was right. She'd never heard any of this before.

"Out of sheer, perverse, stubborn generosity," Piers said. "That is the only reason I can think why he decided to come and help me, hundreds of miles out of his way. By the time I finally had the orb, I had already decided not to use it." She felt for the first time, watching him, just how old he really was. Smooth skin and soft hair were both betrayed by the weary tone of his voice, the sound of a crusted-over wound. He sat in meditation just long enough for her to try and speak up. But he beat her to it in the end.

"Felix demonstrated to me courage, and many other things."

"Piers," she interrupted, "you couldn't possibly have been that bad. Come on."

"He wasn't," Jenna said, eyes flashing. They caught the light like gemstones. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Piers."

"No?" Piers said thoughtfully. "Perhaps not. But one of the rights I reserve to myself is to tell my stories in my own way. Each of us can only shoulder the burden of our own mistakes, and I have my fair share."

"Piers, you're the most optimistic and courageous person on the ship," Mia said. This was a little ridiculous.

"And I would say again that Felix taught me that. Not in words, perhaps, but when I returned to Lemuria I was not the same person I was when I left."

"And what changed?" Mia asked.

"Why do you think I am so vigorous?" Piers asked, smiling oddly. "What changed me in Lemuria?"

"You… I don't know," she replied.

"I stopped drinking the draught," Piers replied. "I have begun to die, and never have I felt so alive."

None of them quite knew what to make of that.

"Wh-what?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

"Blood is cheap to Felix," he said. "Life itself is cheap. There are things worth far more to him than mere…existence, things worth hundreds of miles. I have learned about some of them."

"Like what?" Jenna said.

"An idea," Piers said simply. "An ideal." And he fell silent, staring contemplatively into himself.

After a second she stepped out above decks. Piers was hard to understand sometimes.

* * *

><p>Unfortunately this was another grey, cloudy day, and there wasn't much to see. The first sharp bite of the air made her catch her breath. Beyond any doubt they were headed north, north to snow and never-ending cold.<p>

The funny thing was, she could picture it perfectly somehow. She could see Felix emerging out of the dark, on a still, damp tropical night, behind Piers right as he gave up hope. She could hear insects chirping as he tapped the sailor on the shoulder, that strange laughing pity dancing in his every gesture. Even if it didn't fit with anything else she knew, the single image stuck somehow.

She shivered, and looked around in surprise. Never on land had she met a wind that bit through this robe. The fur was inches thick. She withstood it another minute, just to prove she could, and turned to the cabin and her room.

Jenna was standing guard over Felix, who showed no interest in rejoining them. She was struck again by how angry he was, even in sleep. The frozen mask never slipped.

"He looks so…heartless…so worn and hard," she said, realizing too late it had been aloud.

"Who, Felix?" Jenna said softly. "He's helped every injured duck and idiot villager in the _entire_ world."

"…Complaining the whole time, I imagine," Mia said.

"No," Jenna said, in the same gentle tone. "I did most of the complaining."

Mia watched Felix's chest rise and fall, turning that over in her mind. How true could that possibly be? But she remembered how strikingly he had reacted when he'd found her broken heart, etched into the table. Nothing made sense with him. Just when she felt confident in disliking him, a magnificent, shining gesture would flash out and touch her.

"What do you think Piers meant?" Jenna asked.

"I don't know," Mia said. "Blood is cheap?"

Jenna sighed. "Felix… sometimes I find it easy to hate him, and sometimes I kick myself for even thinking of it."

Mia could agree with that, no problem.

"He's right, you know. Felix is like that. His priorities are all screwed up. He'd hike a hundred miles through the snow to bring you a hot cup of tea if you asked. …But then, of course, he's… you know how he is. Scary."

She nodded. Jenna was reading her mind. The red-haired girl sighed. She sighed. She leaned forward and cupped her chin in her palm. They both looked down on Felix's face. Haunted, it seemed, even in repose, by whatever chased him while he was awake.

"What was it he'd said… 'I began to die, and now I feel alive'?"

"Heh, yeah," Jenna said. "Piers is a little weird sometimes. _He _says it's because he's lived too long, or not long enough. …Which also doesn't make sense. I think all Lemurians are a little crazy."

"Does he really… feel that way? Did all that stuff …happen?"

Jenna shrugged, thinking about how to phrase it.

"_Well…_ he was in prison, yeah. And we did go find him to help him with his orb."

"Piers told you his life story, huh."

"Hey, you're awake," Jenna said. Felix's eyes had indeed lifted open a fraction.

"Don't believe a word he says," Felix said.

"What do you mean?" Mia asked.

"Piers is nothing like what he'd have you believe," he said. "I assume he didn't mention how he volunteered to explore the world, with maps made hundreds of years ago. Or how when we finally did get back to Lemuria and found out his mother had died, he volunteered to come with us again."

"No, he didn't mention any of that," Mia said, grinning. It was good to remember that some secrets were worth digging up.

"Maybe it is all just perspective," Felix said. "But I'd trust him with anything. It's easy to flog yourself for your mistakes, but everyone makes them."

"That sounds like someone else I know," Jenna said, giving him a hard look.

"Now," Felix replied, "I'm a different story entirely." He matched her gaze perfectly, and she didn't pursue the argument.

"What else did he say?" Felix said after a pause.

"He said," Mia began, collecting her thoughts. The phrase crystallized. "He was talking about how he changed when he was in Lemuria. He said he stopped drinking something, and began to die… ' I have begun to die, and never have I felt so alive'."

Felix chuckled, with something more than mere appreciation of a good joke.

"Typical Piers. Do you understand what he means?"

She thought. She thought about Piers and his blue hair and strange youth and wisdom. She thought about a secret island where you lived forever, and the wide world slowly wasting away all around it.

Death and judgment. Or inevitability, maybe…and the ways you could face it.

Piers could have lived free and secure, forever. But maybe, it was only worth trying if you knew you could fail. It was only worth living if you might die someday.

_Blood is cheap. Life is cheap. _There was a strange romantic logic in it. Piers was weird. And so was Felix.

"At first no, but now I think I might," she said softly. "It-it's not something you can put easily into words."

"No," Felix said. "If you try to say it, it'll just vanish on you. But if you look from the corner of your eye, it's there." He smiled.

She looked at Felix, still turning the wheels slowly. Felix had almost died so often that he'd lost count. A silvery spiderweb of scars ran all along the parts of his body she could see. His clothes were frayed and holed from rocks, thorns, and hard miles on forgotten roads. What had Piers seen there? And suddenly the depths revealed themselves.

"Maybe… maybe Piers wanted you to know he wasn't playing a game… that there was more to him than practical jokes," she whispered, awestruck. "Maybe Piers wanted to tell you that he would obey the same rules you did, as a way of paying you back."

Maybe Piers had wanted Felix to know he wouldn't be the only one to bleed.

"Yes," Felix said softly, fiercely, the shared knowledge crackling between them. "_Yes_."

She hadn't realized she spoke aloud until he replied. She looked away, too late to miss the warmth of remembrance in his expression.

"I have never forgotten," he said.

* * *

><p>"Felix!"<p>

The call came rolling down into the hull, filled with a tension that instantly set her ill at ease. It was Isaac's voice, and yet again something was wrong. She stepped out into the hallway to meet his rapid approach.

"Isaac, let him…" Her voice trailed away. She had noticed what he was carrying. She let him swing past into the doorway of the room, where Felix shot up in bed. Even numbed as she was, the whistle in his breath registered.

"Are you crazy?" he said, his voice filled out with a power that surprised her. "Drop it. Drop it _now._"

The sword clattered to the ground between them, a dark, accusing finger.

Isaac tried and failed several times to find anything to say. She could hear the weight of bitterness dying on his tongue, dying in his heavy, staccato breathing. Finally Felix took up the slack for them both.

"I don't know why that's still here," he said, then changed his mind. "Actually, that's not true. I know exactly why that's here. I have not given up revenge, so it's not going to leave me alone."

"Felix," Isaac began.

"Isaac, let me finish."

"No," Isaac said. "I'm not interested in your excuses. I just – I just don't want to hear it, Felix. I don't know who you are anymore."

He turned and walked out. Jenna stood without a word and followed him.

"I'm not going to use it, Isaac," Felix said loudly. It must have sounded hollow even in his ears, because he sighed and slumped down, covering his eyes with his hands. He had to have known she was still standing in the doorway, but to his credit he didn't try to meet her eyes. She took one last look at the sword lying black and silent on the floor below his bed and pulled the door shut.

Piers came flying down the hallway toward her. He cut a ridiculous figure with his great coat tails flapping and hair hitting him in the eyes. She would have laughed if everything wasn't sad again.

"Mia," he said, stumbling to a halt right next to her. "Mia, please listen to me."

"What is it, Piers?" she said. It was about Felix, and she didn't care.

"Felix is a good man. He is a good man, I'm telling you."

Suddenly she was just sick of it, sick of trying to decide, of trying to excuse away the mountains of damning facts piling up.

"If he's a good man why does he have the sword, Piers? Why won't he get rid of it?"

Piers looked at her closed door, pleading with Felix to help him. In the pain of that glance Mia read everything she needed to know.

"I want someone to tell me why," she said. "No one knows why, and without why nothing else matters." She left Piers standing in the hallway, in his big leather boots, big leathery hands clenched tight enough to cut.

She curled herself up in the corner of the library, amid the paper ruin and the great carvings. What had she even expected? Things had seemed like they were improving – it was too good to have been true for a second. This was the real thing. This was all she had to expect. A surge of anger left her feeling slightly nauseous. Sick over pain, over loss, over what felt too much like betrayal to be anything else.

* * *

><p>Alex had been so cruel right before the end. She'd missed what little kindness he'd once shown, knowing even then it had been little enough. He had always been one who set his eyes on the stars and stepped on the flowers without noticing. He had ignored her entirely in favor of these dreams he was always chasing, dreams of glory and tall towers by the sea. There had been no room for one like her at the top of the aerie, where cold and ruthless delusions grew. She had run through his papers and the books he'd read. She felt no shame in admitting that. But neither had given her the same secrets he'd apparently found, and she abandoned them after a time.<p>

Nothing had mattered to him in the end. Not the home she'd tried to show him, the hearth she'd so loved to rest by. Not the fierce winds outside, that challenged and silenced her, took her breath away and filled her with exhilaration. Not even the danger in Imil would hold him there. There burned in his heart some dark fire that would never stay in one place for too long.

Even so she had hoped to have meant more. That was what it became; she was honest enough to see that. She wanted to have been more of a friend. Why had all the long steps through the snow and the quick-flowing years been worth nothing in the end?

Felix was just like him. Nothing she did, nothing she was, mattered at all. She missed quieter and narrower hours in a calmer and straighter world. Knowing that nothing would ever bring them back again only increased the longing.

* * *

><p>Piers deserved better than this. Piers should have met Isaac, who understood the value of humor. He should have plotted with Garet, the arch-joker, and soared across the bright intellectual sky with Ivan. He'd poured his blood into the wrong cup.<p>

The door to the library creaked; she looked up listlessly. It was Kraden, puttering around in the bookshelves. She didn't feel like moving, so she just curled up tighter and waited for him to notice her. She envied him his air of abstraction, the academic distance he had from the world. Kraden, she was certain, would not be feeling the twisting, strangling acid in his stomach that she had in hers.

"Oh! Oh… hello, Mia!" he said.

"Did you hear?" she said, feeling dead. He surprised her then.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I did." And he looked away, and there was a weight under his profiled eyes that reminded her of Felix. Did everything always come back to him?

"Kraden," she said suddenly, groping for the wall. She stumbled to her feet, repeating his name. "Kraden. Tell me. Tell me why." A better question. There was some truth hidden on this ship, some obvious fact too large for her to keep from tripping over. Did everyone know except her?

Finish with the excuses and lies. Just this once, just now, let him lay out the tangled thread clean and bare. But she could tell already that she was going to be disappointed again. Kraden wouldn't meet her eyes.

"I can't," he said. "I'm sorry."

She screamed.

"Why? Why can't you tell me? Why can't anyone tell me? Who is he? Who are we?! Do you know? Does anyone know?!"

He flinched away from her, raised his hands to his face as if to shield himself. She flew through weeks and weeks of confusion, ignorance, loneliness, the sound and the feeling of hope being crushed.

"What does this mean? Is there a meaning to anything? Piers told me all about how Felix was so good, and brave, and _noble_. Well, he's _not_! None of us are! We're not heroes, we're not saviors, we're the most pathetic people in the world! Felix can't save us! He can't even save himself! Where did the adventure go?! Where did love, and hope, and happiness go?!"

Suddenly she was standing in the library of Piers' ship, listening to the sobs of a helpless, timid old man, and she fell silent, ashamed.

Kraden sniffled and ran a wrist under his nose.

"Do-do you know why Piers told you that?"

His voice was almost too quiet to hear.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I know why." He knew. He had known all along what Isaac would find, and he wanted to prepare her. "And I don't believe it."

Kraden turned and shuffled out, as fast as his undignified legs would carry him.

She looked around at the books, the glass, the shredded paper everywhere. She fell forward to her knees, crunching softly into a pile of parchment, and choked back tears.

* * *

><p>Felix lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. There was a particularly interesting little swirl in the board just to the left of him. It ran like smoke, down to the far wall, curling and blowing.<p>

He'd thought it was almost over; or at the least, that he could bear it.

_Venus. …or Mercury. Someone. Anyone. Help me. Please. _

He was thirsty. That fact had just about overcome his reluctance to stand when something tapped on the porthole glass.

"It's falling apart, Felix," Echo said, materializing on his chest. Fortunately the Djinn was too light to interfere with his breathing, or he'd probably choke to death right here.

"I heard," he said. "I know."

_Felix can't even save himself._ How cruelly true.

"She's too close to you for this to work, Felix. It's not going to work."

"It'll work," Felix said. "It has to work."

He hadn't known how deep she was, how far over her head she'd gotten. She was close to him.

"Is that a price you're willing to pay, Felix?"

_Stop reading my mind. _

_You wanted them all to live, Felix, live free of doubt and fear and oaths. She will not. She will take away a wound from this. Is that a price you are willing to pay?_

Felix's imagination pictured Mia, older, lines cut in her face with a chisel he had guided. His instincts cried out, screaming for him to stop.  
><em>I will pay it,<em> answered the stiffest, sternest part of Felix's mind. _She will recover. I will pay any price. Any price at all. _

There came something that sounded, in Felix's head, like a small sigh.

"How strange you humans are."

"Echo," Felix said, "I told you to get out of here."

"And I told you," the Djinn said, its voice deepening and aging, "I told you that I would stay by you. Whatever happened."

Felix was no longer cowed by elemental spirits from Beyond. He was too tired for a reminder of power to mean much. And contracts with the outer world no longer seemed the guarantees of strength they once had. But Echo was a friend, and one he desperately needed.

"You're an idiot, Echo."

"No more than you are," Echo said, resuming its normal quiet tone. "Loyalty got us both into this."

Pssh. Loyalty.

It looked up suddenly, catching his eyes in beady brown ones. "Before you scoff at principles, remember that they are all you have left."

"Some men like to hide their principles," Felix said. "To protect them. If you make fun of them yourself first, others are disarmed accordingly." After all this, poised on the very end of the world, they were still having these philosophical debates.

Echo cocked its head and blinked.

"Interesting. I will suspend my judgment for the moment."

"I need a drink," Felix said. "Let me up."

The Djinn made no discernible movement, besides blinking again. Sometimes the depth of those black eyes infuriated him.

"Alcohol will ruin you just as surely as Acheron will, you know."

Felix began the faintest hint of a snarl.  
>"Okay. One, I'm planning on being ruined, remember? Two, don't say that name. You may be outside her notice, but I don't need more attention drawn to me." He couldn't help a glance at the sword, still pointing bitterly at his heart. "Three, I want <em>water.<em> Off."

With the Djinn removed, he considered. Would it be better to get up in stages or all at once? He shot up, staggered a few paces, and collapsed headlong into the hallway, his whole body on fire. Wrong choice. Ugh.

"Your plan is stupid," Echo called from the room behind him. He planted a hand, slipped in a patch of liquid, landed heavily again. His blood. He had to laugh at that. The gods had decided he couldn't be a hero, and so he wouldn't even be allowed to keep on his feet. He couldn't be a tragedy, fine, but did they have to make it all so comic? Did life have to spit in your face after it cut you down?

"You're stupid," he said, laughing, scrabbling for purchase on the door frame. So pathetic. He was finding that nothing came the way it did in stories. No vindication, no redemption, no second chances.

In a real fall he couldn't even keep dignity. Just tripping in his own blood in a stranger's doorway. It was all too funny. He finally worked himself up, gripping the edge of the frame, and started off for water.

Felix remembered falling, vividly. He remembered the scent of sheer terror, the feeling of wind running through his hair, playing with his toes, shoving his heart up into his chest. He remembered drowning in wind, his nostrils and eyes filling with it. And far below, a pale dot against the blue sea.

This was nothing like falling. And yet, in a way, it was the closest thing to this. The threads of this mess had finally escaped him. It was all flying unraveled, sliding out from under his fingers. In a way, as he stood without anything to stand on, surrounded by nothing to touch or grip, falling was a very good analogy indeed.

"I have never known anyone quite like you, Felix," Echo said, from the doorway he was leaving behind.

"Neither have I," he said.

* * *

><p>Hmm. What does that mean I wonder.<p>

Thank you for reading.


	16. Misericordiae

Hi all. Here's a next bit. Sorry for the ridiculous delays.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Misericordiae

_What does it all mean? – Maha _

_If this ship sinks, everything we've done will mean nothing... – Garet_

Out on deck Mia was watching a bitter argument blossom. She felt a small, sour taste in her mouth, and wanted desperately to kick something.

"None of that meant anything!" Isaac shouted. Watching him lose his temper was the worst. Of them all, through it all, he alone had never yet lost control. No one had the helm anymore. "It was all a lie!"

She felt like her life was a picture or a letter. Something written on flimsy paper, blowing in the wind.

"He tried to get rid of it," Garet said, too sad, apparently, to fight back. She'd never seen the embers in his eyes so dim. They were dying, here, before her eyes. Colosso, Vault, Kalay… fading forever.

Someone had taken that letter and before her eyes he was ripping it, slowly and painfully. Long, curling tears in her life, ripping apart the threads holding different events and people together.

"But he didn't," Jenna said. His own sister. Even she saw the signs, saw the end here. And this was the end. It was over. "He didn't get rid of it. And Piers said he knew it was going to come back."

Taking those pieces and shuffling them together into a neat pile. Ripping them again, in the other direction. All that was left on each piece was a word at most, fragments of sentences, a few letters. Meaningless and destroyed.

Watching them all give up. They were all spiraling away, breaking apart.

A piece or two of her paper life, caught out of those fingers, shot away on the breeze. Lost forever.

"What do you think, Mia?" Isaac said.

She felt a bite of anger. Why did he have to draw her into this? Now they were all looking at her, hopeful or angry or both. For the truth was she did not dare to think. She did not dare confront the dark clouds lurking under that horrifically decisive question. From this fork there would be no turning back, no second chances. And she would not, could not, make the right choice.

"Mia," Garet said softly, "You said yourself we can't pin blame." So softly, so softly. Forcing the words out of a throat that never wanted to speak again, listening with ears that longed not to hear.

That truth stung more than anything else would have. She looked back and forth, measuring the faces, the eyes, trying to avoid a decision, trying to force down her heaving guts. All this time, all these miles, and now the dance was over and she had to choose. Blame, indeed. Who was to blame for this? Who could be accused?

The cold, icy eyes.

The friendly, warm words.

The razor-blade smile.

The candle.

She looked at Jenna and Isaac and she looked at Garet and she made a decision that stoked a writhing fire in her chest.

"I don't trust him," she said, knowing full well that they all trusted her, feeling her own fingers on the blade sliding into her soul. Garet recoiled like a beaten dog, disappointment and hurt shining wetly in his eyes.

"Please!" Sheba screamed, tears making her scrunched-up face ugly. "Why won't you just give him a chance?!"

She turned and fled, unable to take it any longer. Six pairs of eyes burned holes in her back.

She paused for just long enough to be sick over the tail of the ship, and then tumbled down the stairs, locked the door of the library, and fell to her hands and knees in the paper.

How could they be fighting amongst themselves? Now, after all they'd done? Falling out over Felix, of all things?

But, while that would normally have been disaster enough for one day, she knew that wasn't the real reason a tight hand was gripping her heart. That was not what was still making her twitch and shiver uncontrollably. She tasted bile in the back of her throat, as bitter as guilt itself.

She had betrayed him.

She had sold Felix, left him for the crows to fight over, and she knew it. Whatever fragments of good remained in him, she had given up on them, without even considering the alternative.

Mia let herself fall to the floor, her hair cascading messily down around her.

"What did I do?" she whispered. Somewhere in her heart a sullen, defiant voice was speaking with its arms crossed. She had hated him anyway. She couldn't rescue someone who refused to be rescued. But she was coming more and more to realize that had never been the point.

A part of her was curiously detached, as she knew she only could be when nothing mattered anymore. Why had she done that, as a matter of intellectual interest? What possible reason had there been to abandon… hope?

The door resounded under furious rapping. She reached up and shot the bolt open, and Kraden piled in on top of her.

"Mia…" he said, taking her in.

She watched him through puffy eyes.

"Mia, it's not true," Kraden burst out. "Gods forgive me, it's not true."

"I know," she said miserably, testing the depths of her crime.

"You…you …know?" Kraden asked, a genuine surprise sinking in.

"Not another word," said another voice, filled with something like anger. Kraden turned, and she saw a Venus Djinn crouching on the floor behind him.

Normally she considered them ungainly and cute, but there was no arguing with the sound of that voice.

"Scholar, have you forgotten your oath? Even a rash vow should not be so easily broken." It sounded like deep, dark, ancient earth. Like an echo ringing from the foundations of the world. She shivered.

Kraden stumbled blindly out and was gone.

"So desperate already," the Djinn said to itself. Or maybe to her. "Every moment I am surprised at Felix's strength." Its eyes flicked away, and she stretched out a trembling hand.

"Wait. Please."

She was regarded with a dark, impenetrable gaze, eyes that were inky pools of alien consciousness. Never again would she call a Djinn cute.

"Tell me the truth. I just betrayed him," she said simply. This was too important for pity or pride.

"I too swore a vow," it finally said in reply. "I begin to sympathize with the old man. My word is paramount, but you offer me a tempting reason to break it."

"Please," she said.

"Sometimes the truth is too hard to bear," the Djinn said. "Sometimes the truth is not worth what we pay for it."

"I haven't paid anything yet," she said. "This is my own fault." She looked at her own hand, still stretched along the floor to where the Djinn crouched.

"You grow wise, young girl," it said, and then gave a remarkably Felix-like sigh. "Now the test has come, and I too cannot resist bending my oath. I am loyal, and so is he." It vanished.

After a second of stunned silence she reached for the edge of the door and flicked it shut again, this time locking it for good.

Loyal? Loyal to what? Felix was loyal to himself and to Acheron, and that was it. That only confirmed what she already suspected. Maybe that was what the Djinn had meant about the truth hurting. But why would Felix have the Djinn and Kraden swear an oath not to tell about Acheron? He didn't seem to care.

She curled up against the door and bit her lip.

She liked him. There, it was out. She'd said it. She liked Felix, for what he was always hinting that he could be. He teased and intrigued her with glimpses of kindness and generosity, and she'd ruined any chance of that side winning. That was what it came down to.

Mia sniffed, the first of many tears running down off her chin. Now that it was over, she remembered Ivan's warning about the battle, about saving him. Now that it was too late.

What had happened?

She twisted the fingers on her left hand with her right. One of the cabinet doors opposite her was ajar slightly. Light coming in from the window reflected off the glass.

There seemed so much about Felix worth saving, now that she had destroyed the chance to save it. She had known that all _along, _for Mercury's sake. This wasn't her.

But she knew it was. It had to be. She had never felt remorse before, when she'd been …infected. And she certainly felt sorry now.

Above, piercing through the deck, came the sound of the bell. It took her a second to remember what it meant.

_No. Not now._

She pulled herself up and fumbled the door open, just in time to see Felix dart by. His face looked unnaturally pale, flashing by in a cloud of dark hair and dark clothes.

Hell. If he could do it, so could she. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself out into the hallway after him and ran lightly up the stairs, watching his ponytail bounce around. He shouldered the door open and disappeared into the light outside.

Not as much blood as last time, but apparently they'd been ambushed somehow. She blinked, trying to track the confusion. There was Garet. Sheba behind him. Isaac over there.

They were fighting apart.

She cursed and jumped in, spearing a blue thing above Garet's head. Isaac swung behind her and she heard a cry. Not his. Felix waded in at the bow. Sheba exploded in a cloud of smoke, and lightning danced across the deck.

The last bit of ice in her hand melted away, and she had just taken a breath when a cloud of birds descended from nowhere. Feathers swirled and flew; raucous cries filled her ears. She swung wildly and missed the first. Another swung far out over the water; she lifted up a thin stream from the waves and plunged it into the depths.

"Oh no," she whispered, dropping her hand. Something screamed to her left. "I killed it."

Wet feathers bobbed to the surface off in the distance. Garet yelled incoherently. Wood cracked.

She covered her mouth in horror, unable to break her gaze from the tiny, pathetic lump.

Its head poked up, a tiny speck at that distance. She gasped and smiled.

Then something struck her, and she fell.

* * *

><p>Felix frowned down at Mia's body. This seemed like a suitable arrangement of blankets. Away from the face, not too many, not too few. Good. Her blue hair had come untied and blown in his face on the way down; now it spread all across the crumpled sheets.<p>

He smiled slightly at the memory. Her hair getting caught in his, stuck in his mouth - soft as feathers. Like a silent, shimmering waterfall.

She was an idiot. Just like him. He rubbed his eyes, only to wince sharply and yank his hand away.

"Ow." His palm was covered in long, shallow cuts. The price of a promise. All his promises were being paid in blood these days.

A slight scrape on her head; she'd probably prefer to heal it herself, so he'd left it alone. Nothing serious, and no other injuries. She'd recover.

"Your bird," he said to her, "is alive." He enjoyed the chance to act a little more human. Her conscious ears would never hear him tease. "Yeah, I was watching. I don't want you to get hurt. I know you think you can handle yourself, and I'd let you lecture me, except that stuff like this happens."

He sighed and studied her, caught in a moment of helpless repose. She was so beautiful. Mia hadn't lived too long. She was still young enough for sleep to smooth out the lines the world had marked on her forehead and around her eyes.

"Mercy," he said to her, "is a weakness you cannot afford." True to form, Mia did not respond.

_Kill me_, he heard softly, blown on a long-stale breeze. _Strike right where I showed you._ He never could kill Saturos. Even with blunt wood.

"Mercy is no weakness," Kraden said from behind him.

"It almost got her killed just now," Felix replied, not turning. He winced, hoping the scholar hadn't been standing there too long. He knew he had a fairly high margin for weird actions, but talking to an unconscious girl he barely knew might finally qualify.

"Everyone dies, Felix," Kraden said. "Everyone dies eventually. The question is what you take with you when you go."

Felix tried to find an appropriate response, and gave up.

"Well, I guess she'll be in good shape then," he finally said, taking one last look. She looked so peaceful in repose. A far cry from the usual preoccupied, worried frown she wore. No. Mia would have no trouble at death's gates. He turned fully to Kraden.

"I think she will," Kraden said, staring into him. "How about you?"

"The gods got me into this," he said. "They can get me out."

"Do you think they will?" Kraden said softly.

"No," Felix said. "I have gone too far. And I have learned to expect neither justice nor mercy. But I'm not complaining."

Kraden sighed. "Felix, I'm sorry."

Felix turned around. "Sorry for what, Kraden? You've done nothing wrong."

"Nothing wrong?!" Kraden replied, astonished. He held out his frail, shaking hands, encompassing Felix. "Look at you, slowly bleeding to death, caught in a …centuries-old trap, t-tortured beyond what you can bear! For the sake of an old man's greed and curiosity!" He swallowed. "L-look at you…"

Felix took two steps across the room and laid a hand on Kraden's shoulder, forcing himself not to react as the rough cloth bit into his skin.

"Kraden. How were you to know? How was anyone to know? I would have drawn down the wrath of heaven whatever else happened. Even as you planned I was preparing to break into the Sanctum. I ended up taking the Stars, and so I have been cursed. Very simple."

Kraden shook his head.

"I touched them first, I should…"

Felix laughed. "Oh, come on. None of you are touched. That's the way it's going to stay."

"There must be some way out," Kraden said.

"There is no way out," Felix said firmly, shaking his head. "No way except forward. But only one of us needs to walk that road."

Clearly Kraden was never going to be done arguing this. He headed for the door.

"Take care of her for me," he said over his shoulder. Perhaps a little cruel, but one of them had to take no for an answer. On the way out, he stumbled on something, and saw the sword slide away as he recovered himself.

There was one off-putting thing Felix had noticed about that weapon. It drew attention to itself. It caught the eye in a black, ominous stare.

Hmm. Couldn't leave that in the girls' room. After a second's thought, he unclipped his cloak and whipped it off. Kraden was still staring at him, probably preparing another objection, so he moved quickly. The sword went neatly into the cloth, hidden completely from view. He tucked it under his arm and stepped out into the hallway.

Where to put it.

_Throw the damn thing overboard._

He chuckled. Now there was an idea. Honestly, though. Not in Isaac's room. Not in the cabin, nor in Piers' room. The sword seemed to grow heavier the longer he cradled it under his arm.

_In the ocean with it. Now. _

Wouldn't it just be too good. Engine room, maybe?

_You know you want to. _

Finally he stopped and considered it, playing out the consequences in his mind's eye. The feeling of roots ripping out from around his heart. The blood. The stabbing pang of loss. The shock and pain might kill him for good this time, and he just couldn't afford to die now. As much as he wanted to. But oh, how he detested this thing.

He needed to think. He turned for the cabin stairs and nearly bumped into Isaac. As his eyes widened, Isaac's narrowed to slits. Felix became uncomfortably aware of the weight under his arm.

Isaac took the last few steps and pushed roughly past him. Felix fell back against the wall, putting out a hand for balance. Isaac turned into Mia's room without giving him a second glance. Felix stared after him, no words coming to his defense. How the mighty had fallen. How the dice had hit the table at last. That settled it. To the wheelhouse.

In the main cabin were Jenna and Garet, comforting each other over something he'd done. More specifically, something he was holding. Their stares were barriers that he just barely pushed through.

On deck he spun away from Ivan, coming around a corner like a mute, pale, horrified ghost. Finally, and worst of all, Piers turned away from the tail to catch his eye right as he pulled the wheelhouse door open. It would be unthinkable to break contact, to just turn away and leave. That would merely deepen the betrayal he saw reflected deep in his brother's eyes. But that was what he eventually did. He threw the loathsome thing into the wheelhouse, pulled the door shut behind him, and collapsed on the floor.

What to do. What to do. He rested his chin on a fist. The sword, now, was both his greatest ally and his worst enemy. Without it, this last gamble probably would not have worked at all. But now that he had it, it had worked too well. The revenge he'd originally planned on had not been this ever-spreading blight, this all-consuming pool of black hate and sorrow. Felix smiled. Mock innocence wore poorly on him, the poor fool. What was revenge in the first place? Too late to question that decision now.

If the sword was still with him when he got to Prox, he would go through with it. All of it. There was no longer any doubt there.

But – if he did get rid of it - no one could know that he didn't have it. And he might still find a need for it.

And inexplicably, a total revulsion swelled up in his throat. To hell with careful plans. To hell with disguises and excuses. Suddenly and completely everything that still shone of nobility in Felix revolted against another coating of slime. He would burn before he touched that sword again. Two days of freedom had not been nearly enough.

Still, the danger was undeniable. If he lost his hands being a fool, then what? If someone got killed?

_You're going to lose it all just because you can't bring yourself to commit to this? _

If someone found out, and they would eventually, it would ruin everything. If the others weren't here he wouldn't have thought twice. As it was, though, he had to protect everyone else.

What to do.

The bell rang.

Somehow, in the mad scramble off his feet and out the wheelhouse door, he found himself outside with the sword in his hand, wrapped in a tangle of dark green cloth.

The bell was still ringing, bright, insistent tones calling his name.

_What if this all goes wrong?_

_What will you bring with you? _

He turned to look out behind him. The sea was sparkling. Maybe the last time he'd ever see it before the fog swallowed him. The ship's nose pointed into dark clouds and icy, snapping wind. Far off to the south, faint crescents of land shimmered on the low horizon, and the sun was shining. Somewhere else, the sun was shining.

He hurled the sword as far as he still could. As his cloak wafted overboard he chased it and leaned far out over the ship's wake, snagging it in two desperate fingers. The sword hit the water.

Blood sprayed everywhere, followed by a fresh surge of pain. The sticky fingers of his hate ripped just a little bit more. He sank to his knees, and rolled down onto his back. They would have to fight this battle without him. He could feel the world ebbing away again. Even so he couldn't bring himself to anger or despair. It felt good, good to defy it in the end. Defiance. He smiled. It was worth it.

The last thing he thought before existence lost him was, _What will I have with me when I reach the other side? _

* * *

><p>The first thing he saw when he woke was Echo, nearly touching his nose. He started, and the Djinn drew back a hair.<p>

"Piers brought you down here."

Felix nodded, not trusting his voice just yet. Did he still have lungs at this point?

"Felix, do you even have any blood left? You've left pools of it all over the ship. It looks like a slaughterhouse."

_Acheron exacts a stiff price for disobedience._

"So she does. Are you sure that was wise?"

_I am questioning the value of wisdom._

"Be careful, Felix," Echo said warningly.

That tone checked him on the edge of the precipice. He pulled back only with regret and longing.

_Fool, _he thought. _You're on the verge of throwing it all away, and for what? Don't be stupid. _

He had been just about to give up everything. And the worst part was, he couldn't decide whether what he'd tasted was delirium… or freedom.

"If you actually mean to go through with this," Echo said, "you're going to need all your strength. As a friend, do not waste it on gestures."

Felix nodded. He needed to be capable of standing up if he meant to win. And he tried his best not to listen to the small, persistent voice that asked: what if gestures are the only things worth living for?

Piers had healed him a bit. The cuts in his hands were closed, and his chest felt better. He drew a cautious breath. Hurt, but not outside the ordinary. One more favor owed to the only friend he had. With luck, they would all be paid off at journey's end, only days away.

"You should survive this one," Echo said. "But no more. Whatever you're beginning to feel about your tools, you have a mission to finish."

"Fine," Felix said. "I know."

He wanted to protest the injustice of that _beginning_, but Felix had lived long enough to know that insults only really hurt when they were deserved. The sword had been a crutch, one that he had embraced.

* * *

><p>Once on a bright summer day in the warm south country, Felix had come up a river. The water had sparkled as the trees slid by and the sun kneaded his shoulders. Piers' enthusiasm and energy had not just been a side effect of freedom from prison, and his gay laughter had lifted the grey cobwebs from all their eyes. Kraden tasted the winds of Lemuria every day now, talked of the great city every chance he got. He laughed and babbled as only an old man could who saw his life's dream in his grasp. Piers, though he thought of the great stones as home and knew the legends as friends and mentors, listened with unending patience. Watching, Felix curbed his own tongue and stilled the anger that had grown in him without his awareness.<p>

Without realizing it, he had grown too stiff for fun. Too proud for trifles. He had forgotten the vow he'd made in the busy streets of some colorful desert city, as Menardi kicked a beggar off her heel. As the stares flew by and the noise blurred in his ears, he tossed what little food he had to the cripple. Sore-pocked hands raised in blessing were all he could see as he stumbled after the others. That night he went hungry, chewing on grass so his stomach wouldn't growl. No explanation or excuse would wheedle more bread out of Saturos. Besides, vows had to be sealed with pain or they would be forgotten. Those hands remained in his memory. Never, he said to himself, fifteen-year-old fingers toying with the field in the dark, never would anyone suffer while he did nothing.

The first glory of freedom hit him like the sun's rising rays in Idejima. No more torture, beatings, curses, hatred. Prox's grip had loosened at last. In Daila he found Echo, and a ruined temple. Beyond Daila he found Master Poi. Beyond Poi he found the Plateau.

He enjoyed feeling the land in his toes, figuring out the riddles. Which holes would drop him through and which would hold his weight. He enjoyed cresting the ridges and diving into the valleys, a fish in the dry sea. He walked across red dirt and green grass and grey rock and white sand, carrying Sheba most of the way. He crossed rivers and cut into forests and gripped the tops of mountains with white knuckles. He enjoyed tripping across the Djinni here and there, and after the first scare he didn't mind the fighting. But by the time he stood on the bobbing deck of Piers' ship in the warm sun, piercing into the heart of Osenia, it looked to be a long, long way to the Mars Lighthouse.

So that was the first of the sleeping chains that doomed him. In Yallam he had been exhausted, not yet hardened to the road, not yet beyond the point where hope or distance mattered. On a hill in the afternoon glow he met Sunshine the blacksmith, sleeping his life away. The first rush of discovery after rummaging through bags, when Sheba's pretty rock captured Sunshine's attention, stirred something in him. And so, hoping to divert his attention from the straight path, he consented to explore the swamp.

Gods damn that filthy dark pit. Gods damn it to hell.

Felix had known what he had found even as his exploring fingers closed around the raw ore. It was sadism, it was pain, it was thin and bitter laughter. It was the delicious tingling rush of evil.

How he saw it now. Oh, how he could see it all now, so clear, so simple. Felix had forgotten the only thing of value Prox had taught him – discipline, and through discipline strength.

Felix could never fully give in to the adventure of the moment as the others could. He had to stay on his guard at all times, because he was in flight. He was tired of vigilance, and tired of fleeing from the people in the world he most wanted to meet again. And for one of the only times in his life, Felix chose his own pleasure over the safety of those who trusted him.

He lifted the ore from the hole he'd scratched out and slipped it into his pocket unseen. Saturos was cold, and Menardi was cruel and hard and vicious. But the thing that really scared him about their brutal philosophy was how hard it was to escape, and how easy to slip back in.

The ore reminded him of the one consoling treasure of Prox, the only fire that could warm hearts trapped in a frozen wasteland. Power. He felt fully in his own bones the lust of it, which had seemed so weak and shameful at second hand. His fingers closed even tighter in his pocket.

After the sword had been reforged he played with it, dripped the shifting steel through his fingers, that first night while the others slept. He remembered Sheba and Jenna's awed exclamations that evening, and Piers' single sharp cry of distrust. Even then, especially then, it had not been too late to throw it away. He knew what was right. But warm, spicy strength flowed up his arms, arms that lately had seemed too weak to hold his friends safe for many more weeks.

Until his dying day, Felix would eat his own heart in rage and sorrow over that one fatal mistake. The soft velvet fingers of lethargy and distraction had closed in an iron grip around his throat. Caught in a trap he himself had made, he knew he raged in vain.

"It's not too late, Felix," Echo said. The voice startled him out of his well-worn reverie.

"...What?" His thoughts were spinning loose in their sockets. Felix realized with an unpleasant shock how used to reliving that story he was. Why did he spend so much time thinking about that anyway?

_Good, Felix, good!_ Echo cheered. _Break free! _

For half a second Felix strained to reach something, something shining just above him. For half a second he saw the truth.

"Can I really do it, Echo?" Felix asked. Was it even possible? The blasted thing had returned to him every time so far. And he couldn't deny that part of him never wanted to let go of it.

"...I don't know," Echo admitted.

Felix had slipped back down before he realized what it was he was losing. He frowned and pursed his lips, frustrated. The thought had slipped beyond his recall, and there was no getting it back now. He was back in his own life. Damn.

_Keep trying, Felix. _He sighed. Echo tried so hard, but Felix didn't feel anything changing. He was glad he had a friend, even so.

The stairs creaked.

"It's Mia," Echo said. "Remember." He vanished.

"I know," Felix said irritably, to thin air. He knew, gods dammit. Sometimes the truth was what left a bitter taste in the mouth. Sometimes knowing wasn't worth it.

The sword was leaning up against the wall in front of the bed he was in. Back again. A trailing string of profanity died somewhere between Felix's mind and lips. Of course it was here. Why would anything else have happened?

But for just a second he had dared to hope.

_I hate you so much. _

He carefully covered his fingers in the cloth of his sleeve and wrapped them around the hilt. It was stained with his sweat of these last two years, and with the blood of every life the blade had drank. He fought the urge to cast it off in disgust.

The empty scabbard lay on the floor. Maybe Piers had brought it in. He sat up slowly in bed, drawing both up to him.

Death, and pain, and hatred. Burning, burning hatred.

Who was he following, doing this? What was he keeping faith with now? There had to be something, or someone. Saturos would never have done this. Saturos had never done a thing in his life that he hadn't done for himself. Maybe his father would have, long ago. Now his father was a wraith in a grey hut in the white snow.

Felix looked at his fingers, wrapped around the hilt, and his eyes widened with a nasty suspicion. Who was talking to him?

The door creaked. Remembering himself, he pushed the point into the sheath's open mouth. The door crashed open and a flying cloud of Mia's dress and Mia's coat and Mia's hair burst in. Felix felt a snarl rising from sheer surprise; that would help him now.

_Please, please, just shut the door and leave. _

She was taking a step toward him, hesitant. The blade went home, and he looked up.

"What?" he growled.

She didn't say anything yet, eyes fixed on the hilt still in his hand.

_That's right. Evil sword. Go. _

"Felix, you're hurt!"

That warm, sweet kindness felt sticky. He tried to control the urge to brush her off. Just enough; there was no need for excessive force.

"I'm fine," he said. Good. That came out okay.

"There's …bloody hand prints on the door!" she cried, looking young and sweet and horrified. "You've been hiding something!"

"I'll be fine," he repeated, forcing himself to stand up. Age had found its way in between his bones, long before its time. "Don't worry about it."

He did know how stupid that sounded. Anyone would worry at that. Why hadn't he cleaned that off? He had to add cleaning up to his list of chores. Mia moved with him, blocking the door. Felix desperately wanted to avoid eye contact. He didn't have the heart to glare at her the way he usually could. Not today. Not now. But as he tried sliding around her she put a hand on his arm. He stopped, mentally running through every oath he knew.

_Nothing will go my way, will it. Never. _

"I can heal myself," he said. But by now he knew Mia well enough not to insult her intentions.

"Felix," she said, her downcast eyes and folded arms breaking some dirty secret open. "I told the others I didn't trust you."

What had happened? Good gods above, it was working.

"Good," he said evenly. "Don't trust me."

Echo had been right. She was breaking apart, foundering on his existence. There were some things that he never wanted to see. Gods. Victory made him feel sick.

"Felix, that's not true! You're not that kind of person!"

Oh gods. She was crying again. This was going to hurt.

All through his life he'd faced other people down. Somehow it hurt more when they were broken and bleeding out, like now. A miserable history if there ever was one – just a long succession of tear-stained faces he'd had the pleasure of forcing to the edge. Why would they come to him for answers? He'd created the question.

"That is all I am," he said. "I'm sorry if I misled you."

"You're lying," she said, staring him down through fierce wet eyes.

He controlled his dismay as best he could. How much did she know?

"Why would I lie to you? Revenge, remember. It's all I want now."

He turned unceremoniously and fled, trying to ignore the deafening silence behind him.

"Felix!" she half-screamed, and an invisible chain snapped taut on his back.

"Is it wrong to hope?" she whispered. "Is there no hope?"

Oh gods. Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. He ached with the sudden desire to grab her tight, to shield that voice from the world and to tell her everything would be fine.

"Mia," he whispered, not turning. She couldn't see the pain he knew was written across his face. He swallowed. "No. There is hope," he said. "You just put yours in the wrong place."

She stayed silent.

"You can hope that you'll live through this," he said softly. "You can hope the sun will rise tomorrow. You can hope the birds will sing." He stared straight ahead at the open doorway.

"Felix," he heard her say, choking back tears. "What does any of that mean, without you? Why do I want the sun to rise if it looks down on this?"

He bit his lip.

"I told you," he whispered.

He spun on her, knowing he had lost his self-control completely and not caring. "I told you!" he shouted. Through blurry, wet eyes he saw her shrink back on herself, utterly crushed by sorrow. She had never seen him shout. None of them had.

"I told you not to trust me! I told you exactly what I was and you didn't listen to me!"

Why hadn't she just listened to him?  
>He dropped his arms to his sides, slumped down.<br>"I never wanted this to happen to you," he said softly, looking on the ruin he had made.

"Felix," Mia said, "you're crying." She reached out, slowly. He watched her hand rise up towards his cheek. At the first contact her hand jumped back instinctively, but he held perfectly still. She took a half-step closer, pushing a handful of the hair back off his face. His eyes felt swollen and watery, the way hers looked.

"No," he said at last. "I'm sorry." He shook his head, more and more forcefully, backing clumsily away. The leaden weight of guilt in his chest threatened to pull him to the ground completely. "I'm sorry." He kept saying it numbly. "I'm so sorry." He turned and ran.

Felix smashed blindly into the wall opposite the door and slid sideways down the hall, tripping over his own feet. He wanted to run, and run, and never come back.

Mia. Poor Mia. He swallowed, hard.

* * *

><p>This is a lot more depressing than I remember it. The next bit isn't quite so bad, I promise. As always, thank you for your patience. If you have the time, please read and review.<p> 


	17. Shell

Holy cow has it been a long time.

I hope that most of the people who read this story have jobs and families and better things in their lives by now. But I swore to myself three years ago that I would finish it and by hell I will.

I do not own Golden Sun or any of its contents.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Shell

_Alchemy…what use is it all? Your mother would rather see you grow up to be a happy, ordinary man. _  
><em>- Dora, Golden Sun<em>

_Please tell me the truth. I can't believe you would go so far to help someone you just met._  
><em>-Mia, Golden Sun<em>

Mia ran a hand along the rumpled sheets on her bed, feeling the creases Felix had left. She rubbed, back and forth, back and forth, letting the cloth tickle her palm. Out in the hallway, the little red slick that had first caught Mia's attention still lay on the floor, still innocently crying murder. A bit higher, on the door post, was part of a scarlet hand print.

Everything was wrong.

She heard steps in the hallway, still absently smoothing her bed. Sheba came in the door and checked herself. Mia half expected her to turn and leave. The traces of tears were still fresh on her face. But she resumed her entrance and sat down on her own bed, to Mia's left.

"Hi Mia," she said.  
>"Hi," Mia responded. For once, Sheba had nothing further to say, despite Mia's desperate wish to the contrary. They lapsed into silence.<br>"Felix is hurt again," she said. "But he won't let me near him."  
>"Is it bad?" Sheba asked anxiously. Mia shied away. She felt she might shatter at anything.<br>"I don't know. I haven't seen it." Silence.  
>"He's got the sword again," Sheba said. They both already knew that, but it was something to say.<br>"I don't understand," Mia said. "I don't understand anything."  
>"There's got to be some reason," Sheba said, leaning forward. "There has to be some reason. Felix wouldn't do this for no reason. He… he just wouldn't." She swallowed. "…I don't understand either."<p>

Mia knotted her fingers together. "I saw him touch it," she said, that pale justification ash in her mouth. Who cared what she saw. All the same the terrible sword slid home over and over again, Felix curled up over it, insomnia and evil cutting purple bruises under his eyelids.  
>"No you didn't," Sheba said, shaking her head. "You couldn't have."<br>"…Sheba, I-" she began. She saw, in her mind's eye, his white, translucent fingers gripping the hilt. Holding on to it hard enough to drain the blood from his fingers…  
>"You didn't," Sheba insisted. "He said he wouldn't, and I know he didn't."<p>

She sat for a second with her mouth open, wholly at a loss. Even if she could find the words to unravel that faith, did she really want to?  
>"You know I have the same powers Ivan has, right?" Sheba asked quietly. "Not as strong."<br>Mia's eyes were opened.  
>"You knew," she whispered. "You knew he still had it."<br>Sheba nodded, unable to speak.  
>"You really trust him," Mia mumbled. Trust. If only she had the guts to take a jump like that. But then, a fall from a lighthouse might forge the same bond in anyone.<br>"He's a good person," Sheba wailed, about to launch into something further.  
>"I know," Mia said miserably, the tears starting to her eyes as she remembered the ones in his. For the first time in the conversation, she forced herself to look Sheba in the eye. "Sheba, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry." She dropped her face into her hands. "I don't know who's right anymore. …I just want it all to go away."<p>

Sheba's bed creaked.

The sword. She had seen the sword. Felix couldn't bring himself to anything more than cruelty, every time. He was so cold and spiteful and miserable. And yet he'd still taken time to feel sorry for her. He'd robbed her of any reason to hate him long ago. She couldn't say he was hopeless. She knew she should, she wanted to, but she couldn't give up on …something. It was so hard and so painful and she was tired of hurting. She had had her fill of adventure. If only she could live a quiet little life in quiet little Imil, far from demons and princes with crooked grins and looming red towers. But Mia knew Imil was gone forever. The seed of something had been planted in her heart by this journey. She had become too restless to ever sit for long. Maybe it was poison. It felt icier and more certain. There was something about despair that made it more real than any happiness.

Then, she decided, give her what Felix wanted. She felt the numb certainty sinking in, the brick wall he saw every morning. Oblivion. The only real way out. Hope hurt too much to hold on to. After being dashed into the ground so many times, it just wasn't worth trying again. Better just to be washed clean, and sink into black night forever. Just for one second to be free and clear from this torture. Catharsis. Blissfully numb.

She felt small, tender arms wrap around her waist, and before any thought she was leaning gratefully into Sheba, resting her head on the younger girl's.  
>"It's going to be okay, Mia," Sheba whispered, her voice raw and wet. "We're all going to be okay." Mia flung her arms around Sheba and held on tightly. In that moment she was sure. She felt the creeping arms of despair slip away into the corners. She didn't want catharsis. She wanted peace. From Sheba there flowed a faint, thin ray of hope. She wanted to dare to hope.<p>

Sitting on her dirty bed in a bloody ship, arms wrapped around a girl she barely knew, she let herself believe that everything would someday be okay, and the flood nearly burst the walls of her shriveled heart. Everything would be okay. The pain would end, someday. They would all be together, friends at last with the world's troubles behind them. They could just sit and relax, for a little while; nothing would need saying.

She wanted Felix to be there. She pictured him standing with all the others, smiling at some joke, laughing at clear skies and green grass and for the sheer sake of laughing. Not the soft, bittersweet smile he sometimes got, thinking about the dreams he never dared to have. Not, either, the hard, heartless laughter that haunted her daydreams, angry at the universe, at her, at everything. She shifted slightly to get more of Sheba in her hug.

Someday, maybe, Felix would hug her like this. Someday when everything was better and the darkness in his eyes had been washed away. The interview she'd just had with Felix stuck in her mind. She couldn't stop thinking about it, turning it over to see all the different faces. Felix… he… it almost seemed like he cared. That had taken her aback. He had been crying for her, over her. Her pain had meant something to him all along. She had meant to take it slow, to test the idea out tentatively, but it was so attractive she let the rush carry her along. He'd actually had to run away to escape her. Felix wasn't what he pretended to be. He wasn't an ice-hearted monster. She wanted to hope. She let go of her friend, sitting up and taking stock. "Thanks, Sheba," she mumbled, using one sleeve to rub her face into presentable shape. The cloth scratched the raw skin under her eyes. This ship. A funeral couldn't be worse. Nothing seemed to be going on above, judging by the noise of pure silence. That was enough to further lift tired spirits; her standards had slid to the point where even an uneasy peace was dazzlingly attractive. She wondered where Felix was.

"I admire you so much, Mia," Sheba said into her shoulder.  
>"Pff. For what," Mia said, blushing.<br>"For helping Felix," Sheba said, lifting her head. Mia looked away. "Don't think we don't notice."  
>"I've done nothing," Mia said.<br>"Nothing?" Sheba said, her voice rising. Mia could just feel the big huge deal this was going to be. Her hand went over Sheba's mouth even without her permission.

Sheba's eyes went very wide with uncorked mayhem, and two fingers made their presence known in Mia's ribs. Gasping in surprise, Mia fell back, and Sheba pounced with a flurry of tickling fingers. Mia writhed and choked, laughing hysterically. Escape was impossible. Her attempts at parrying grew more and more feeble. Just on the brink of surrender, one flailing hand brushed the pillow on Jenna's bed.

Then it was war. Filled with exultant energy, Mia pressed in on her advantage as Sheba picked herself up off the floor and took up her own arms. Feathers began drifting to the ground as the fighting intensified, pillows flying madly. Sheba flung her pillow at Mia's face. When Mia came back from the dodge she found a blanket sailing over her head. She pulled it back and wrapped Sheba in it, pulling the squealing, kicking bundle close to her. She could almost taste victory. The bell rang.

"Are you serious?" she moaned, letting Sheba go. Brushing sweat from her forehead, she reached for the door latch. But something stopped her from stepping out into the hallway. She turned and looked over her shoulder. Sheba had gripped the fingers of her trailing hand, as if Mia needed a lifeline. Felix slid sideways past her, his eyes taking in the room in a flash before he disappeared.

"Mia," Sheba said. "Can we just stay here? Please?" Against the mute, shining appeal in those violet eyes, Mia almost surrendered. And she heard Felix's steps trail to a sudden halt.

"We can't," she finally said. "We just can't. What if someone is hurt?"  
>"I know," Sheba said, dropping her head. "I'm sorry."<br>"Stay here, Sheba," Mia said, gripping her little sister's fingers. "We'll be just fine, and I'll come right back."  
>"No, it's okay, I'll…"<br>"Sheba," Mia said. "Stay here. Just this once."  
>"No," Sheba said, with equal firmness. "I'm old enough. I want to help."<p>

Mia gave in, ignoring someone's voice crying deep within her. It couldn't be helped. She darted out into the hallway and stopped just short of hitting Felix, who had his back to her and his head bowed, absolutely still. Without a word, he came to himself and ran lightly up the stairs.

By the time they reached the deck the fighting was over, Piers wiping off his face and Isaac sheathing his sword.  
>"What kept you?" Piers asked.<br>"Sorry," Felix said. "I got held up."  
>Piers gave him a bland Lemurian glance that might possibly have contained a hair of annoyance.<br>"Well. Nothing to worry about, it was a minor invasion by those jelly things. Isaac and Garet helped me."

Felix put a hand on his shoulder, dark lines taut under his eyes.  
>"Piers, I'm sorry."<br>Piers took a breath and a heartbeat. Isaac kept moving away.  
>"It's okay, Felix. We… we can handle some of this for once." A guttural trace of Lemurian humor entered his voice. "That's what we wanted, after all." It almost sounded like revelation.<p>

Mia looked up into the wind-torn sky and nearly said a bad word. They were all far too used to using Felix as a crutch.

"All right," Felix muttered. "I'm going down. Call me if you need me."

He was of no use to anyone for any reason, and he knew it, but Piers nodded and played along for his sake. Was transparent pity better than nothing at all? He flopped back inside, and on impulse she caught the closing door with both palms. She needed him.

He didn't go back down, though, but into the kitchen. She quashed a thin trickle of disapproval. It would be vaguely inappropriate for Felix to stuff himself now, but then who was she to decide that? Tactfulness was not a strength she boasted.

Instead of looking for food, though, he dropped through a trapdoor in the floor. She crouched and slipped fingers under the wood, watching the top of Felix's head move away in a square of darkness. Carefully, she scrambled onto the thin ladder below. It was impossible to sneak up on the man, but she tried anyway, dropping on cat's feet to the bottom of a dim space. …Felix wasn't much older than she was, she thought, straightening up. Still, it was impossible to call him a boy. Boys only had external scars.

Felix had kept moving without pause when he'd heard the trapdoor lift again, and he was on the point of disappearing into a door on the other side of the narrow room.

"Felix," she cried. "Felix, stop." He stopped. "Please, Felix, stay here. I promise-" she cleared her throat and swallowed. She looked down at the floor, and swallowed again. "I won't cry. I…I promise."  
>Felix stayed still for another minute, but he didn't disappear. When he did finally walk back to her, she saw the last rags of melted ice sealing up in his eyes. He leaned against the wall, close enough for now. From that position, facing the nose of the ship, he regarded a long row of open, dark, empty cabinets across the vessel's width. She dropped to the floorboards next to him. Felix's pants looked a lot more comfortable than a skirt. They were dirty, patched, baggy, and fuzzy. A traveler's garment. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. So many things she wanted to know, to say. So many, in fact, that none of them managed to make itself clear. Her head buzzed. She wanted to see Felix's eyes again, his real eyes.<p>

"Want a cookie?" he said, reaching forward and plucking something from the depths. She reached up and took it from his fingers, feeling the outside. Stale didn't apply to anything this hard. She was glad she hadn't used her teeth first.  
>"When did you buy this?"<br>He smiled.  
>"I found it, oh, months and months ago. In a jar. I've been saving it for a special occasion." Was that a twist on an old game? "…But I left some money, so I guess that counts as buying." Ah ha. Felix had once played a game about small things and big pictures. She wondered if he still remembered the rules.<br>"Could throw it at our enemies now, I guess," he said. "Pick something big and ugly."  
>"You'll have to narrow it down a bit," she said, smiling. He darted a glance at her and smiled, but his eyes were sad. After a second her smile faded, but the bridge had already been built. He slid to the floor beside her, looking out toward the end of the world. Down here secrets felt closer, in this dark, creaking cave under the kitchen. Down here she could see some of what Felix kept in the shadows.<br>"I guess you've discovered the secret," Felix said. "We have no food."  
>"So what has everyone been eating, then?" she asked. Felix raised an eyebrow.<br>"Tree bark, I think."  
>She giggled.<br>"What do you normally have?"  
>Felix sighed and leaned back onto his palms, reading the inventory off the ceiling.<br>"Plants," he said. "Herbs. We go through a lot of herbs in this outfit. Meat when we can get it. Fruit rarely. Generally in the shape of a stew, which is the only thing I know how to make."  
>"Want me to try tonight?" she asked. "I'm not too bad."<br>"Would you?" he said, as if she'd offered him the moon. There was something quivering in his whole expression, a gentle and teasing and infinitely warm flame, and she knew with a burst of shame that she was going to cry. The ache in her gut was leaking out, and she was helpless to stop it. She looked away so that he at least wouldn't have to see it.  
>"F-Felix, I'm s-s-s…" She was suddenly, piercingly aware of how filthy and bedraggled she was, her cheeks hot and puffy. And she just couldn't stop sobbing, the heaves shaking her whole body. It just hurt too much to be safe. She heard him take a long, deep breath into his soul, and let it out slowly through his nose. "Felix," she managed, gulping. "You scared me so much. I f-fell into the …the hole inside you." Funny that she could handle its presence but not its absence.<p>

One of the things about Felix was how he always helped in a way no one else would have thought of. She heard nothing from him for a long time. And then he spat, forcefully, in disgust, away from her. That brought the waterfall to an instantaneous halt. She raised her head from her lap to stare at him in utter disbelief. Before she got there his hand slid across her back and came to rest on her shoulder.  
>"Mia," he said, his tone ringing with all the sincerity he could fit into it. He was closer than she'd ever seen him. There were faint scars across his hollow cheeks. His breath smelled faintly decayed and sweet, and somewhere in her mind medicinal senses shouted in alarm.<br>"Mia," he said. "I'm so sorry. I really am." His hand was warm and wonderfully solid on her shaking shoulder. She curled up and burst into tears again. Slowly, carefully, Felix pulled her in to him, and sat next to her in perfect silence. It wasn't fair. The things she dreamed of now were not coming the way she wanted them. On the other hand, little else would have served to comfort her the way his gruff, casual hug did. Felix was the rock he always had been, a firm foothold beneath her raging river. The rhythm of his breathing was his only comment, slow and steady and even, and gradually hers slowed down to match it. The butterflies and the pain died away in equal measure.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"So am I," he said, and she felt the words rumbling through her bones. Felix was so alive, warm blood rushing through his veins. Cold belonged to the snow and the tundra, not to a person. Do you always breathe and bleed like this? she wondered. But even in Felix's ears that would have been too strange a question. Some ideas didn't survive exposure to the air. She needed to stay here forever. Keep Felix talking. What could she ask him or say that would get him rambling, lost in the labyrinth of his memories? What would give her a clue to him? …What could she ask that wouldn't end painfully? "Felix…" The lighthouse. The kindest thing she'd ever seen him do. That had to be safe. "How… how did it feel to jump off the lighthouse?"  
>He shifted and pulled himself up, into a defensive ball. She mourned the loss of his hand from her shoulder – this was not going well.<br>"How did it feel to fall?" he mused. "Funny, I've been thinking about that a lot lately." He paused and breathed. "It was terrifying. Our fears, you know, are opposite our inclinations. I learned that from Kraden as a kid."  
>She nodded.<br>"Imagine being on fire," he said. "Imagine drowning in fire." One violent second of red flames playing up and down her defenseless body, and then her imagination shut down. She shuddered. He felt the tremor and nodded in sympathy.  
>"Yeah."<br>That had somehow not occurred to her. When she replayed Felix's breathless prayer to heaven, his slow-motion lunge off the brown stones, his boots blinking out of sight… now she knew Felix had done literally the most frightening thing he possibly could. Dear Mercury. And she'd thought it was almost effortless for him.  
>"Felix," she said, wrapping her arms around him in turn, "Felix, how did you do it? You're crazy!"<br>"I was not crazy," he said, and even now she felt his heartbeat rising. "I have never been so sober, so perfectly aware, as I was at that one moment." He let out a deep, nervous breath.  
>"And you did it anyway?"<br>"I had to," he said. "I couldn't let Sheba die." In his tone was a hint of futility. What words could he use to explain this? Fortunately Mia understood perfectly already.  
>"Felix," she said, locking his gaze. "Felix, you've never said anything I understood as much as that." To think… and yet he'd done it anyway, and never once questioned the decision to follow Sheba over the edge. "You're so brave," she mumbled. Felix stood up, brushing his clothes into place.<p>

She looked up at him, feeling his warmth fade, feeling her spirits sink, knowing this was yet another blow. He turned to face her, but his face was not filled with the storm she'd expected. He was still warm, still… still himself.  
>"Mia," Felix said. "Please. Don't do this. I am not worth your time." Blunt, and to the point. This was going to hurt as much as she'd anticipated. And still she would wriggle against the knife.<br>"Yes you are," she said. "You just don't know it."  
>"I'm not brave," he said, his voice heavy with weariness and self-deprecation. "Just stupid."<br>"Was it stupid to save Sheba?" Mia asked, with perhaps a bit more vim than she intended.  
>Felix shook his head, sending his hair flying.<br>"No," he said. "Of course not."  
>"Good isn't stupid, Felix," Mia said.<br>His entire face bloomed in a rare smile, eyes crinkling and teeth flashing.  
>"No," he said. "No, of course not." She enjoyed seeing genuine humor in his expression, but that was just too much. "Felix, why don't you believe me?"<p>

He folded cross-legged to the floor, a bit farther from her than before.  
>"Some times," he said. "Sometimes, Mia, good people are forced to do things they don't want to. Or not to do things they want to do."<br>"Good people are good because they want to be," Mia said, slightly confused. "If you don't want to be a good person, then just don't." Oops. She hadn't meant to insult him. But Felix seemed not to have noticed.  
>"So what is a good person, Mia?" Felix asked, resting his chin on his fist. His other hand traced loose circles on the floor.<p>

What was a good person? Felix was a good person. Her father was a good person. Isaac was, and Jenna was, and Piers was, and Ivan was, and Sheba and Kraden and so many others they had met. What did they all have in common?  
>"Good people… put others before themselves," she said, embarrassed at how trite it sounded. "They don't kill or steal or cheat. They are just and kind."<br>"Are they happy?" Felix asked. His gaze was always disconcertingly intense, even now in the dim storeroom.  
>"Yes," she said. Yes, they were. Good people were happy.<br>"Then you're not a good person, Mia," Felix said, smiling to show no offense was meant. "No one is."  
>Ugh. Felix was too quick for her. She almost objected, but he'd know she was lying.<p>

Damn. Felix was smart.

"Felix," she said. "I know you're wrong, but I don't know why."

He nodded and stood up.  
>"Fine," he said. "Think about it and let me know what you decide."<p>

"Well, congratulations," Mia shot back, deflated. "You just ruined my day."  
>Felix's attention snapped abruptly back to her.<br>"Tell you a secret, Mia," he said softly. "I want you to be right. Did you know that? I really do."  
>She scrambled upright as he left.<br>"Well, why don't you prove me right?" she said hotly. "Try being a good person for once, a really good person, Felix. See if you aren't happier."  
>He turned around, and she realized she'd cut him again.<br>"See?" he said. "I'm not good, and even you know it. Soon it will be too late. Some of us just aren't meant for happiness."  
>"No, Felix, no," she cried. "It's never too late. Don't say that, please."<br>"Mia, just leave me alone. You'll be so much better off," he said, old and tired again.

No! No! This wasn't right! Felix was so much more than this!

He saw the arguments floating to the surface, and scattered them with one final strike.

"Mia, I'm begging you." His brown eyes were subdued, troubled, helpless, in the shadow of dark, dirty locks. He was begging.

She bowed her head, beginning to sob again. Felix slipped out, softly clicking the door shut on the ruins.

"Okay, Felix," she whispered. "If that's what you want."

* * *

><p>Felix stepped out onto the deck and shut the door behind him. If only he could lock it… but that would cause more panic than it prevented. No one was up right now, as dinner was minutes from the table. He'd spoken privately to Piers and taken his watch. A harsher and tenser exchange with Isaac had netted him that watch as well. He alone possessed the deck until sunrise.<p>

The smell of frying food escaped from the gaps in the windowsills and out under the door of the cabin. His stomach rumbled, and he savored the sharp pinch. Hunger meant he was waking up. Hunger meant Acheron's fingers were loosening. It was a good thing they had taught him how to embrace pain in Prox.

"Echo," he said. "I'd like to talk to you."

_I'm always here, Felix._

_ I like to offer you a choice, Echo._

The Djinn popped out in material form onto the rail, and Felix leaned down next to it. Purple clouds were swelling and darkening as the sky blushed. This would be a spectacular sunset. The cold nipped at his ears, and he pulled his scarf tighter around his cheeks. The ship rolled into a deep valley and spray washed over the deck. He twisted to one side to avoid it. No use getting wet right from the beginning.

"Echo, I can't take it anymore. I can't do this."  
>"Why not?" Echo said.<p>

_Um, you know all this already. You are here. In my thoughts. _

_That will not help you arrange your worries. A few questions might._

"Mia," he sighed. "It's Mia."

_Ah?_

"She is a very pretty girl, Echo," Felix said. "She is beginning to make this difficult for me."

Felix felt the foreign nail that was Echo tap his thoughts.

"Ah," Echo said. "You don't want to disappoint her, but that's the plan."

"Yes," Felix said. "I have to get rid of her, and keep her from feeling guilty about anything that happens later." He slumped down. Felix knew everything there was to know about rocks and hard places. Maybe, at the end of all this, he could get in just one minute without feeling crushed. Falling, falling, blissfully free. But it was time to solve what he'd come out here to solve.

"Echo, are you good?"

_…What? _

_When you talk, are you telling me what's right or just what I want to hear? _

_…Why do you ask?_

"Just answer the question," Felix pushed.

"I think you are asking me because in some hazy corner of your mind you still have me confused with the gods, Felix. I do not know the gods' minds."

_But aren't you sort of… supernatural?_

_ Don't you have a soul?_ Echo responded. _You are sort of supernatural yourself._

_You're dodging the question._ Frustration.

_In so doing, Felix, I am trying to give you your answer._ Patience.

_So you just tell me what I want to hear._ Felix slumped even lower. His chin wobbled back and forth on the rail.

_Normally I tell my masters what they do not want to hear, as a balancing force. You are quite good at telling yourself what you don't want to hear, so I tell you what you want to believe. As balance._

"But is it true, Echo! Is it true?!" Felix roared. The sound of his own voice startled his ears. He took a deep breath, on the edge of control. "Tell me, Echo, what is absolutely right. Tell me what the perfectly pure, and just, and honest thing to do is, because I'm sick of doing the wrong thing and I have no room for new regrets."

_I am not an angel, Felix. I am not a god. I am trying to tell you that… that I do not know. I do not know any more than you do. _

_What good are you, then? …I'm sorry._

"I'm sorry, Echo," Felix said again.

"I will do my work, Felix," Echo said, sounding much less infallible than before. Oddly enough, Felix, if anything, only liked him more for it. "I will tell you some of the things you want to believe. I think the gods exist."

_ I think they are good, Felix. And I think they exist._

The crux of the problem. Felix lashed out with the single impossible rebuttal that had stopped him short.

_Then why… why… have I suffered so much? _

_…I don't know, Felix. But I think there is an answer, and I think it will satisfy you someday. And… and for what it's worth, I think you are doing the right thing._

"How can the right thing look so wrong?" Felix asked, buoyed up by Echo's faith. Thank the gods he had not been able to turn Echo against him too.

You don't have to pretend any more, Felix. We will reach Kalt Island sometime in midmorning tomorrow. Just avoid everyone until the time comes.

"In secret then," Felix said, looking around to fix the place. No better backdrop could be had. The orange sun was being doused in dark seas, the sky feathered with violent color. "Starting now, I am a good person." He chuckled.

"What about revenge?" Echo said.

He stopped chuckling.

"Echo-" he checked himself. "Echo, you know they must die."

"Must they?" Echo said. "Is this true justice or a personal grudge?"

Felix's interior eye filled with dancing, smirking, shimmering faces.

He tried to force them down, tried to judge clearly. But the taste of fury left a satisfying burn in his gut.

"I hate Agatio and Karst," Felix said. "I admit it. And I am the wrong person to do this. But this has to end, and end completely."

"Felix, you've only been good for thirty seconds."

_Do not mock me, Echo, please. _

_Felix, you must not do this. Do not do this. You have braided your good intentions and your twisted desires together. They can be untangled again_.

To tell the truth, he was sick of blood. And Acheron's fingers were not as tight on his soul as before. For one second he saw the light fanning out from the cracked-open door.

_You have just decided to stop lying to everyone else_, Echo said. _Now stop lying to yourself. Let it go._

"You want to get rid of it, Felix. You know you will be free without it."

Felix did know. He had tasted the wind, these past few days. If once he got loose he would run and run and run forever. He felt a crazy laughter stirring in him just at the thought.

"I can't give it up."

"Why not?" Echo asked.

_I… I…_

"I don't want to kill any more," Felix said."You know I am telling the truth. But Echo, Prox cannot win."

"Do you really think Prox will win anything?" Echo replied. "Felix, Saturos and Menardi are dead. So are all their brothers and sisters. Prox has sent the best she had. Her strength has failed."

The worst part was that he knew it was true. Felix knew Prox would not win anything more than her own continued survival. And he couldn't bring himself to let her have it. With his finger poised over that thready, fluttering heartbeat, no shame or self-respect or moral code would make him lift it off.

The snow was what he remembered the most. The snow, and the hate. Prox lived as a world apart. The miles served to sever it from the hearts of normal men in the green southern valleys. He hadn't even reached the first of the mountains with his kidnappers before he'd learned that. Prox knew only suffering and starvation and the never-ending snow. Game was scarce, shelter was barely extant, and the strong kept the weak where they belonged. At first, of course, he had not known that. The thick shell of childhood had kept him secure for a short time. He had his parents, though they were only smiling for his sake. Fool that he was, he wished his sister next to him, so they could all be together.

Perhaps there would be some his own age where they were going. Perhaps he could escape from the ever less bearable malice and indifference of their captors. The first time in his life he ever really saw his father came when he lay bleeding on the ground, Saturos smirking above him. Felix remembered a throat raw from screaming, his mother's arms holding him back. They had not yet taught him it was wiser to stay quiet. His father had dared to confront Prox about something, some minor point of comfort for the two of them, and been punished for it. Prox was strong, and merciless.

As he learned later, the strength grew where pity had once bloomed, and thrived only in its absence. The other children mocked him incessantly. His nose was always running and his scarf was too long. His mother believed in growing into clothes. Unfortunately the warm assurances of one mother would not hold forever against the smug surety of an entire world, and his shell wore very thin.

The second time he truly saw his father, he stood on the grey planks of their house, the warmth of the fire fading quickly behind him as Saturos brought the winter's teeth in. The door stood carelessly open as Saturos carelessly framed himself in it, demanding Felix as fresh blood for Prox's one desire. Life for life. His father pleaded, but they did not want him. In his prime, his strength and power were refused in favor of a fresh field where hate could be planted. Hate was the strongest of all.

Felix spoke up, and told them all that he was willing to go. In that moment Felix first learned that sometimes the rescuer's role fell to him. Sometimes there was no one left to turn to. He walked out of the house a very short and subdued adult, and he did not look back. Prox would die at his hand.

Echo had nothing further to say, and they lapsed into silence. After the last drops of the sun melted into the sea and vanished, Felix stirred. The sky sank into a deep blue velvet above him, and he craned his head up to stare into the high vault. A few stars were poking through. The sea remained as high as ever, but the cabin had quieted down and the lights dimmed. Nothing better than being alone in the dark, he thought, cheerfully coiling ropes and kicking them out of the way.

The world was wide and the stars were friendly tonight. He hung a lantern in the wheelhouse to read the maps by, leaving it unlit for now. Placing one hand on the wheel, he tried Isaac's wood trick, running the fibers together and smoothing them into one coherent whole. He carefully pulled nervous fingers off the spokes, pleased to find that it held. If there was any life Felix wanted to ask for, this might be it. No curse or disease or injury or fatigue had kept him from enjoying these lonely nights. At times he had listened to the rustling of the leaves or the crackling of a dying fire; now he listened to the rhythmic whisper of the waves against Piers' ship. Out here, too, there were no strange eyes or snapping twigs to disturb his thoughts. He liked to imagine he truly was alone, just cut loose from the fabric of the world. Sailing nowhere in particular without responsibilities or cares.

It wasn't that he didn't enjoy the company of his sister and their friends. But living with only yourself to worry about was different. The only one to rue his mistakes would be him. For instance, if he were caught in the rain without a tent. Alone he might just keep walking, because Weyard challenged him more when she was angry. She reminded him he was alive. Oh well. Someday, maybe. Felix made a cursory inspection of the whole deck for cracks, leaks, loose boards – anything out of the ordinary. Only once had a hammer and nails ever been necessary, but after the hurricane it was wiser to make sure. Just in case. He did not hurry, taking swinging and leisurely steps timed with the rise and fall of the ship. He had caught Jenna smiling again just recently. It was good for her to be near Isaac. He was happy for the pair of them; there couldn't have been a better choice.

Sheba had perked up again with the infusion of fresh blood. Although Jupiter Lighthouse had not affected her as much as the rest of them. Even now the memory clenched his guts. He scuffed at a questionable spot with the toe of his boot, but nothing came loose. Piers remained Piers. Felix did not know the crisis that would dampen his spirits.

_This has. You have._

He blew out a sigh. Echo, as usual, was right.

"You seemed a lot more cheerful when I first met you," Felix remarked. Idejima seemed so far in the past now. How long had it been? One year? One and a half? How much had changed, and how much stayed the same.

"That is because when you first met me you were flushed with the triumph of survival and independence. I am here only to aid your thoughts, Felix," Echo said. "Do you know what an echo is?"

Felix nodded.

"I am your thoughts," Echo said. "I am echoes, bouncing up from the well of your soul. I am the things that you believe and deny, that you long to believe and doubt, that you believe and long to reject. Everything I say to you is what you are unwilling to hear from yourself. I magnify your power and your weakness alike, Felix. That is my usefulness."

"So you… don't exist?" Felix said.

"Clearly I am real, if that's what you're asking," Echo replied. "And before you descend into terrified lunacy, yes, you exist."

Felix smiled self-consciously, but posed the problem anyway. "If you are so dependent on me, why can't I be dependent on something else? Why aren't the gods just pulling on my strings?"

"Because you can choose not to respond," Echo said. "You always have that choice."

"But so can you."

"No," Echo responded firmly. "I cannot. When you call me I will respond, and your decision to pretend that isn't true changes nothing."

Felix fell silent, swallowing a fierce protest. Echo deserved to exist just as much as he did. How was that fair?

"Don't you see?" Echo said. "I do exist. I exist in you. Don't be upset, really."

_ But why? Why did it have to be like that?_

"So that you depend on other men," Echo said. "You are not meant to talk to yourself forever. In the end I am just an echo."

He bowed his head, grasping the truth of it. Truth was what he sought, after all. And Echo, even if he was… an echo. Sometimes it helped.

"Who made you this way?" he asked, wondering for the first time. The stars above silently burned, reflected blurrily in a puddle at his feet. Rags of dark cloud sailed by. He would have to begin checking for ice.

"It is not a question of who made me, but what my name is," Echo responded.

Hm. Felix chewed on that for a second, taking a slow sweep along the horizon. Nothing unusual.

"What does my name make me?" Felix asked. His name had no meaning… at least, he couldn't think of one.

"You have yet to decide that," Echo said. "That, I think, is part of why you are not a Djinn."

Hm. Felix, for the second time that day, was without a response.

"Will you… will you still help me?" Felix asked. "Stay with me, Echo, please."

"I will be with you for as long as you want me, Felix," Echo said. "Don't worry. Take courage, Felix. Be brave."

Felix took a deep breath. He didn't feel brave. But then he never did. In Prox… actually, in almost anywhere, Felix had met people who felt brave. Outside bars, on street corners, lounging in porches. Generally speaking, they weren't. Saturos had liked to demonstrate that. One of the nicest things about traveling alone was not listening to him picking fights. Felix wasn't brave. He just did dumb things to keep people from getting hurt. Sometimes he got really pissed off, and then did dumb things, but that wasn't necessarily bravery either.

_In three millennia of serving humans I have never met anyone with your courage and will, Felix. It is fitting, I think, that when in the end you finally fail it is because your strength no longer has an object._

_ What is that supposed to mean?_

Echo didn't answer, of course, because Felix already knew exactly what was meant. He could not make up his mind what to do.

"I am beginning to doubt this whole enterprise, Echo," he said. "I assume that's what you've been trying to get me to say all this time."

_Perhaps._

"I have always loved history and myth," Felix said. "When Kraden used to teach me that was always my favorite."

At that moment he felt intensely grateful for Echo's presence. Perhaps this creature he barely understood would help him with what he did not understand at all.

"In the beginning," he said, walking forward to the plunging nose, "The world was made. Men and Psynergy existed in harmony and the great civilizations flourished." He snubbed off the anchor chain a bit more tightly, and wiped his hands on his shirt, taking a breath. It bloomed before his nose in a thin cloud, like a dragon's sigh.

"There is a period about which history is silent, and myth speaks only in troubled riddles." He stooped suddenly and picked up a silver stub. Hmm. A tooth. Or something. He rubbed it between his fingers for a second and tossed it overboard. Whatever monster had dropped that likely did not need it now. …Where was he?

"…Then emerge the six great champions of old. Under their guidance the four ancient lighthouses are fortified, turning them into deathtraps." Good. Everything looked in order up here. He turned back to the main deck, the bulk of the watchtower looming dark in the night. The salt smell of the ocean permeated everything.

"Sound accurate so far?"

"I believe I was far underground for most of that, but yes," Echo said. "I see no reason not to believe you."

"And here we are in this age of our own," Felix said, running his hand along the rail. "Cut off from each other, trapped in a fading world. The Lost Age."

"I don't believe I've ever heard it referred to that way," Echo said lightly. "But you are probably right."

Felix prided himself on that name. It fit so many things so well. This ship floated between histories, between the past certain of its decisions and the future certain of its destruction. He lived when all things came into question, when faith failed men and the world had nothing to offer except a demand. It was a good name. They were all lost, one way or another.

"So what are we doing now?" Felix asked, dropping his back against the rough wall of the cabin. "What kind of myth is this? We're not building anything, or accomplishing anything. We're just undoing, destroying. We're smashing a dam. Is history really just such tremendous mistakes? Do the gods not know what we're supposed to do? Will the lighthouses need to be built again someday?"

Felix honestly wondered, some days, whether anyone else in the world could see the gigantic, hilarious pointlessness of this entire endeavor. Surely it wasn't too much to ask that he risk his life for something reasonably permanent. The leaves fell every fall. The snow came every winter, and the world died. The world dying was not the impossibility everyone seemed to think it was.

"Those are all good questions," Echo said.

Felix stood upright again and twanged the ladder to the crow's nest. Not that it was broken. He listened to the world around for a minute and heard nothing of concern. Echo continued.

"Perhaps the world was not ready for Alchemy's true power. Perhaps a lesson about its strength needed to be learned first."

"What makes you think we'll be ready this time around?" Felix asked dispiritedly. They wouldn't. Obviously. Felix had seen most of the world's population by now. They weren't bad, as such. Just not particularly… heroic.

"Maybe this is the nature of man's relationship with Alchemy," Echo said. "Maybe it needs to be controlled and unleashed, every so often."

_Like the leaves falling, hm?_

Felix smiled. His own metaphor turned against him.

"It's a pain in the ass," Felix muttered.

Echo flooded his mind with what might be described as rich laughter.

"Tell me truly, son of earth. Is that any reason to avoid lighting the beacon?"

Felix gave the question the consideration that, under his flippant tone, Echo had asked for.

_Is it? I don't know. Suppose the world is ruined again. Who could build another Venus Lighthouse? Who could make a new Star, for that matter? Suppose I drop the Star in and we are all instantly annihilated. On the other hand, suppose we do nothing, and just… slowly die. It won't happen in my lifetime… probably. But could I be an old man, and know I could have tried this, and not have done so?_

_What a choice_, Echo said. _Do you dare to take the chance that everything will come out golden? Do you dare to gamble that the faces will all come up six?_

_I'm not much of a gambler_, Felix said.

_And yet you take a lot of risks._

Felix rounded the curved wall of the watchtower and tripped over something. He hit the deck hard, flipping onto his back instinctively and reaching inside himself for his weapons. Nothing. Just darkness and the waves.

After a minute, he got some breath back in his lungs and sat up, spotting a white outline in front of the cabin door. A …plate? The food was still warm. He quickly scooped it back onto the plate. It could only have been here for a few seconds. There were a fork and knife and napkin arranged in a tidy domestic pattern on the deck. It looked good and smelled even better. His stomach turned at its very presence. Felix slid the plate away listlessly, leaning back into the cabin wall.

Mia. This had to be Mia. Her signature sweetness was unmistakable.

He felt utterly, perfectly detestable, the size of an ant that was sick to its stomach.

"What have I done?" he whispered. All the noticing he'd done these last few weeks came up to blow a hole in his chest. The wood fell away from underneath him. All that stood solid was one undeniable, insane fact, filling his awareness: Mia wanted him to eat so he could feel better.

After all the misery he'd purposely inflicted. Her heart was breaking. He saw her eyes filling with tears all over again.

_She's so good, Echo. She's so sweet to me. It's not right._

Felix felt tears dripping freely down his face, and let them flow. He felt glad he had come up here alone. He needed the chance to let out some of the storm roiling in his heart. It wasn't right. Mia deserved so much better. They all deserved so much better. He hid his face in calloused, filthy hands. He didn't deserve to feel better, ever. He had always known that.

"I c-can't. I can't do it." He sucked in sharp, harsh breaths, like small explosions. Echo I can't do it. Dear gods I can't do it. Dear gods what have I done. His father's voice whispered in his ear, relentlessly, endlessly:

_I hope you're proud of yourself. I hope you know what you've done, Felix. I hope you see what you've become. _

He shook, consumed by guilt and sorrow and the knowledge that he had intentionally driven himself beyond forgiveness. Her words sounded in his memory: Why don't you try being good?

There was no turning back now. He could see his father's face clearly now, for the first time in years. A face gentle, concerned, hurt… a face infinitely removed from him.

_You are weak_, Saturos said, filling the one word with volumes.

Felix rolled forward onto his knees. He saw all their faces. Piers, his only friend. Isaac, his oldest friend. The confusion and the misery that he had sown, knowing there was no other way. The clouds had gathered, he noticed blindly, through eyes full of tears. The stars had turned their faces away. Saturos looked on with the thin smirk he always reserved for others' moments of weakness.

_ How tragic_, he said. This was pitiful, and fire felt no pity.

In their tiny house, his father held his mother tight, against the rolling stormfront of blinded rage Felix was riding to Prox. He bit his lip and dashed a fist against his eyes and looked up into the sky.

* * *

><p>The formatting sometimes gets wack, and my eyes stop seeing mistakes after a while, so please let me know if there are errors. Thank you and please let me know what you think! There's some good stuff coming up, I'm excited.<p> 


	18. Pieces

New bit! Rejoice ye children of the internet!

* * *

><p>Catharsis<p>

Pieces

_I would not leave this world with so much hatred in my heart. _  
><em>- Tret<em>

Piers watched Mia setting the table, concerned. She slapped the plates down nearly at random, without care for their placement or fragility. The pieces of Felix flying around had struck her, and now she lay wounded before him. Why had he teased her? Selfish cruelty. He tried to shrug off a pang of guilt without much success. Mia did not deserve to be a tool in Felix's salvation. She should not have fallen in love.

He had to keep an eye on her, keep her from doing anything silly. Help her recover when the inevitable end came. Hopefully, he prayed, that would help soothe his guilty conscience.

They lay snug in the common room, warm and safe for now. The amber lights burned comfortingly dim. Mia dished out her cooking from a bowl she held snug in the crook of one arm. Where she'd found the ingredients, he had no idea. It smelled delicious.

Piers loved having so many people in his ship. They were welcome to anything in his floating home. And why not? In return, they brought life, and color, and variety to him. Piers loved all three. They had been ingredients missing in his shallow, endless life before Felix crashed through the candy pane windows, bringing in the bite of real air.

He snuck a quick test taste of his food when he saw Mia's back turned. Flavor, delicious flavor, flooded his senses. Mmf. Felix's merits were many, but his cooking just couldn't compare. He threaded the fork through his portion with keen interest, trying to identify what he saw and what he tasted. Some sort of meat. Onions. Bready taste. Indefinable – was that red wine? He smiled with true pleasure. Mia had clearly honed a natural talent.

Mia sat and they bowed their heads. Piers did not consider himself to be by any means an expert on the gods. But he had assumed the position of authority in etiquette when he first took the helm of this ship, long years ago on one dark and secret night in Lemuria.

"Bless us," he said, trying to project his good intentions beyond the frame of the ship, into the night sky beyond. "May we finish our journeys safely, and enjoy health and prosperity for ever."

The others nodded, and they took a sip from their glasses. Piers studied Mia at the other end of the table. Ever since she had rejoined them for regular meals, she'd asked him to say something. To pray somehow. Piers hoped he was doing it right. For his money, what mattered were the intentions. But he had been wrong before. The best he could do was spit out what awkward, sincere phrases occurred to him, and hope for the best.

He thought of Felix, who would even now be standing above them, shifting from one foot to the other in the cold. Piers frowned at the image and cursed his inattentiveness, beginning to shovel food into his mouth with greater intensity. He shouldn't have let Felix take the watch, but he hadn't been thinking of that at the time. The idiot would never bring a blanket or something hot to drink with him. He would finish this and go provide him with some essentials.

A gentle thunk on the roof drew his eyes upward, still furiously processing dinner. More precipitation? How thoughtful of the universe. Piers loved rain.

But Felix was out in it. Damn and blast it all. Piers shoved his chair back with his thighs, taking his plate with him in one hand and his fork with him in the other, and left the dining room to the surprised glances of everyone.

He headed down the hallway to find some warm blankets, chasing mouthfuls around the plate with the fork as he walked. He loved Felix. Piers loved Felix like he was his own brother. He worried about the boy. He took everything far too seriously, and his intensity and determination might kill him one day soon.

There was a secret hovering around his lips that Piers did not dare to pursue into the labyrinth behind his eyes. Sometimes he had surprised his friend in contemplation of something so terrible it was darkly humorous, his expression filled with the wild and unruly laughter of the night itself. He laughed like a man who wished he were insane, a laughter that was half a scream.

Piers had never had the courage to ask. He avoided it at all costs, knowing the subject to be a weakness in him. He tried to keep Felix as comfortable as he could, as his way of offering reparation for his sin. Piers knew. Oh, he knew. Felix needed someone to probe his wound, whatever it was. He needed someone to get out a shovel and lay out in the sunlight all the dark and melancholy questions that haunted his mind. But Piers couldn't bring himself to do it. Felix turned into an animal whenever the subject was broached. The good food tasted more and more like ash, and Piers swallowed numbly.

As he returned to the dining room with blankets under one arm, the warm peace slunk off for good. Through the walls, vibrating in the doorframe, the night invaded. A thick and inhumane noise bounced off the table, around the room.

"WHERE WERE YOU!?"

Sword in hand, blankets and plate in a pile at his feet, Piers realized with shock that he knew what it was.

"Stop," he said, and Isaac paused on the stairs to the deck.

* * *

><p>Felix rocked on his feet, fists clenched as tight as possible. His gut contracted and relaxed in spasms, pain washing across his soul in waves. Raindrops tapped dully on the boards, on his chest, on his head.<p>

"Why weren't you there!?" he spat. "You think you can look at me like that!? I died and you did nothing!"

_You miserable coward. I was stolen and you did nothing. I was ruined. I was beaten. I was damned. And you did nothing._

His father fled and vanished.

The ocean reached up and slapped him across the face, smacking wet hair into his eyes.

"And you!" He looked up, straight up, into the faces of the pitiless, invisible gods. Searching for the best words to express his contempt and hate, his desire for comfort and his aching heart. Rain spattered off his eyelids and his cheeks. He had cried out and no one had come to pick him up off the floor.

The ship rocked and he fell sideways. Scrambling for his feet, the scabbard got tangled between his legs. He lay for a second spread-eagled, catching his breath, nursing his wounds. The rain came in sheets, a solid block of water poured from a bucket.

Felix stumbled to his feet, instantly soaked to the bone. If this was a divine joke, it wasn't funny. It was sick.

Was that all his name meant? Just the plaything of the cosmos?

He smiled bitterly on his knees, pushing himself up.

Was that all? Savage irony? Did they think mockery would hurt him now?

* * *

><p>Piers remained on his feet, as did all the others, straining to hear anything else from the world outside. The roar of water barely let him hear his own thoughts.<p>

"Is that all you've got?!"

A toneless, pain-filled cry. The screech of a heart tearing. There was nothing more from above.

The silence returned, broken only by the flickering of heavy candles and their breathing and the storm. Piers looked around at his comrades, frozen in a painting of surprise and danger.

"Is that all you've got?" Mia mouthed, the motion of her lips drowned out by the rain hitting the roof. She was staring up, up through the ceiling into the sky.

"Maybe we shouldn't let him take any more night watches," Isaac joked half-heartedly, trying to relieve the tension. But Piers could see something taking him by surprise too.

The truth was, it was good to hear reckless, uncaring defiance. Piers felt the fire spreading down his veins. It was good to hear someone hit back at the universe for once. Even if the person voicing it was Felix.

"Should we go up?" Sheba asked. Piers shook his head. This was important, he could feel it in his bones. Felix needed to be alone. He looked at the sword still clenched firmly in his hand. The others radiated uncertainty.

"There are some enemies that cannot be defeated with these," Piers said, pointedly sheathing his sword. Isaac understood first, forcing himself to resume his seat. The others slowly, raggedly followed his lead. Piers alone remained standing. His fork lay at his feet, where it had landed in the first instant of movement. The fire still raced, and he saw that none of them could keep from boldness in glance and gesture. It kept their bodies twitching with the urge to action, to struggle. Defiance.

_Fight them for us, Felix. Win one for me. I'm sorry I can't do more._

* * *

><p>Felix slammed his palms into the deck, coming to a sudden halt. He stared down into the grain, still looking for the truth. Black seawater washed up between his fingers and shied away. He could feel the knees of his pants soaking through.<p>

"Where is justice?" he whispered. "Where is mercy?"

Wet strands of hair fell in a screen before his eyes.

_Mercy?_ his own voice whispered back. _What have you done to deserve mercy? Justice you shall receive._

He hung his head, knowing it was true. What was the point of cursing the gods? In the end blame rested with himself, and with no one else.

"Felix." He looked up to stare into Echo's eyes, his hair getting in the way. "Felix, you may die at any moment," Echo said. "The gods and the demons are fighting over you tonight. At any second you will be consumed by hate. Do not give in, Felix."

He had no idea what to say.

"If you take revenge, you will be just like Saturos," Echo said. "You will succumb to the disease you loathe."

Felix frowned, and Echo roared.

"Let go, Felix. Now!" The hair blew back out of his eyes, and he goggled at his tiny friend. "What do you want, Felix? What do you really want? Do you have the courage to do what it takes? It is time, my friend, for you to take another leap of faith. Do you, in the end, have the strength to believe?"

The drops pattered around them.

"What if I fail?" Felix asked quietly, half expecting another chewing out. "What if I fail, Echo?"

"You cannot expect good to come of evil, Felix. Whatever way the universe works, it does not work like that. If you want the gods to help you, you must try to take their side."

Felix knew. He knew perfectly well what would happen were Prox not destroyed. Alchemy was not the magic answer to everything. It was Nature, at its rawest and most violent, and it hid the seeds of both good and evil within it. Best intentions did not carry men far enough. For gods' sakes, the lighthouses themselves stood as monuments to the fundamental frailty of people like him.

_Your hatred will destroy you, Felix. If you did not know that I would be unable to say it to you. It will destroy you, in the end._

"Yes," Felix said softly, the patter of rain rising over his words. "Yes, Echo, I know. But I don't see any other way."

When he fell from the aerie the wind had cut into parts of his soul that he had not even known existed. It had shorn loose everything that kept him cozy and secure, driven all comfort far away. He had lost his bearings. Something inside Felix perpetually shivered after that, rubbed its arms and blew on its hands.

Of course, it sunk in mere seconds after jumping that he had no idea what he was going to do. The wind pried tears from the corners of his eyes and tried to claw away his bag and his belt. Right as he finally plowed his fingers into the flapping cloth on Sheba's back, he knew it was too late. The ocean surged up to swallow him. His last conscious act was to throw himself around Sheba as much as he could.

And yet somehow he'd survived. They both had. He remembered actually having to test all his limbs, just to reassure his dazed senses that they were still there. His arms and legs still moved, jerked and relaxed as always. But suddenly they seemed completely new, scrubbed clean by the water. He felt like a gift from the universe.

Felix realized that he always had believed in miracles.

He stood up and squinted into the distance, where a tiny feather of red still marked the sun's grave. Guilt rang through his soul and pounded in his ears. If he wanted to give himself up for the sake of the others, at least he could be worthy of them when he went. Mia deserved more than this. Piers deserved more than this. His sister... they all deserved more.

_You took the sword because you saw the magnitude of your task, and you feared your own weakness,_ Echo said. _But you might not need to. _

He was too tired to hate anymore. But something inside him still called him on, held him up to the strict burden of avenger. The thing needed to be done. It was the only way he could ensure the safety of those he loved.

But freedom. Freedom at last to think clearly and breathe clean air. Even if he died… he would be free. He pulled himself upright, gripping the handrail tightly. Inside his frail body, he felt something with wings beating at the air, shaking out dusty feathers. Felix felt the chains beginning to give.

He stopped, and drew a shaking breath, and flexed his fingers white on the handrail. No. No, he couldn't. Stop. This was wrong.

Prox had to be destroyed. It had to be destroyed. And hatred had to get him there.

Felix felt his breath and his heartbeat, thin and watery. Hate would have to get him there. Nothing else would. Prox had to be crippled beyond recovery, and that meant bloodshed. It was ugly and sick but it had to be done. Nothing else would keep his family and his city safe.

_It will not come to that, Felix. _

It would come to that. As surely as the water ran off Gaia Falls. He knew Prox, knew her as a boy knew his lover. He knew every line and wrinkle and desire of her.

_You knew Saturos and Menardi._

He knew Agatio and Karst as well. Cut from the exact same cloth. The warrior cloth. This was not the first time in its long history Prox had starved. And it was not the only one.

Felix had seen something in Briggs that perhaps no one else had. His chase had held on for so long and so doggedly, not because he knew it was going somewhere, but because he had a theory that needed instant he'd laid his eyes on an honest-to-gods pirate he'd suspected, and when he finally reached Champa he knew for certain.

It stank. The miasma of poverty and despair spread its reek through the whole town, and he recognized the look of resourcefulness and courage atrophied by hunger and turned to crime. He knew it in his soul as a brother. Felix did not need any theoretical proof of the violence that would bloom across the world. He did not merely fantasize the red spring. Champa was already there. Eoleo had the gift, and his father's moral example. A little food shortage, a little territorial dispute, and it would begin. And in Prox no one had ever been quite full.

The sword would remain with him until its work had been done.

_Gods damn it, Felix, you don't want to! _

He didn't want to. That was the thing. He didn't want to kill anyone. Careening across the whole world, setting off the stopped clocks, claiming the tools of destiny as his own, changing history and pushing fate over like so many dominoes, he'd still managed never to take an innocent life, and there was a good argument for not changing that now. Felix wanted to be good, and he wanted Mia to see him do it.

And he knew in his gut, as he had known from the very beginning, that he might be able to recover from breaking his oath to protect the Sanctum. For that, there might be found forgiveness or some obscure line of cosmic legal sanction when his time came to be judged in the dark caves below the deepest earth. But from genocide he would never be pardoned. He would change fundamentally and finally, and much within him would break and be lost. Reeling from that loss he would die. And surely he would be damned.

But he didn't see how he had any choice. He sighed mentally and leaned his hands on the rail, the rain still storming down, and prepared to run through all the facts for the millionth time.

If the Mars Lighthouse was lit, the flames would be fanned, and they would surely spread south. Vale held some kind of limitless power. He didn't know what it was, but it was there. His northern family came to power the way moths came to a candle.

In Prox they had long memories. There was nothing else to do in the long, long arctic winters, when the sun barely peeked above the horizon in the middle of the day, but tell stories. They remembered all the way back to the Wars of the Sealing. Prox had not wanted to be sealed. They had looked from the walls of a great city, even farther north, and had seen the snow far away beyond their fields and towns shining in the sun. Mars Adepts were not stupid. They felt the flame within them with great intensity, and they feared the wet and the cold and the dark.

He knew, with some part of him, that with the last of their warrior corps gone Prox would have the strength to do nothing. They might, with their newfound freedom, not even want to do anything, honestly, save try to reclaim the strongholds they had once held in the North. Puelle was not a warlord.

But within Prox, within it itself, within the soul of the settlement in its myth and legend and choice of heroes, the seed lay buried. Fire always had the chance of spreading.

Vale would fight back when they came, and someone he knew, someone on this very quest, might die. Felix refused to take that risk. Whether the gods knew who he was or not, they had given him the keys to the future. They had given him the chance to strike first, to direct the outcome. They had made him a guardian, and Felix had thought through his position carefully. And he chose to protect his family and his city, with his last breath and all the ones before.

Felix would go as far as he needed to for that. But maybe he could just wait and see until he got to Prox, stood there in the streets again and lived instead of just remembering. Maybe he was wrong about it all. And it was wrong, what he ...what he _didn't_ want to do. He didn't want to. If there were another way he would be willing to listen.

But no one spoke to him, and such possibilities had been exhausted within his own soul long ago. He had to do it, but did man ever have to do such a thing? There had to be another way.

Felix flexed his fingers on the rail, torn by indecision. The hilt of the sword, at his hip, tugged on the corner of his consciousness. The rain and the clouds hid the stars. Below Felix's waist and behind him, the porthole lights burned, the sole illumination anything gave off for as far as the eye could see in any direction. The dark had gripped the sea utterly.

Somewhere far off, a deep, celestial voice rumbled in the clouds. His eyes had finally failed him. What would happen to him if he at last gave up on the logic that had sustained him since Idejima, he had no idea whatsoever. And Felix hated uncertainty.

It would be like falling. Like falling from the lighthouse aerie, no plan, no hope, nothing save a desire to do good and the immanent approach of death. Felix had fallen once already and been given a miracle. This would be just another precipice to throw himself from. He gritted his teeth, knowing he was going to do it, had already decided to do it before he'd decided anything at all.

It was time to be free, and the gods and hell take their shares of the rest.

"Rrgh..." he hissed, pulling himself up short again. But what if? What if it didn't work? What if this was his last chance to make things right?

They wouldn't be right. Not with so much blood on his hands.

In Prox men took what they wanted when they really wanted it. The only language that spoke, in the end, was force. He had learned that lesson well.

But his companions on this journey had shown him that there were other codes that a man could live by. Ones he'd known as a child and forgotten.

Vale spoke no less harsh a language than Prox, if the truth had to be told. A stiff penalty would meet him if he ever returned, a thief, blasphemer, and perjurer, to the town he had disgraced.

In the end, men couldn't live without hoping for something. They couldn't live. And if he was wrong to hope he wasn't just the tool of fate, fate would certainly prove as much to him. But he could try it until then.

_You can do it, _Echo said. _I know you will find another way. _

"All right," Felix said.

He slid his sleeve down over his fingertips and pulled the sword loose, a blue line of fire glinting in the darkness. This at last. _At last,_ his soul whispered. _At last we will soar._ The point bit deep into the deck, deep enough to stay. He forced it down farther, working the soaked wood with muscles and thoughts long disused.

At last.

_In earth, as in the other elements, there is a certain rhythm that works best. Aimless violence will get you nowhere._ Felix, eight years old, threw himself on a stump behind the big house in Vale. Summer sunlight filtered through the forest giants that towered above him. His father laughed. The earth was warm, and forgiving, and generous. That was what Felix remembered. He couldn't lift the stupid rock. His dad made it look so easy. Felix's awkward thrusts and nebulous ideas could at best induce a slight, barely visible wobble.

"Learn rhythm," his father always said, just another human being trying to pass on wisdom that could not be taught. "Be patient. It will come."

Kraden tried being more specific. During their lessons, he told them what Psynergy was.

"Psynergy is a language," he said, in a dozen half-fragments Felix slowly pieced together over that long sprawled-outdoors summer. "You are learning to speak in the tongue of the elements. This language adapts to its users. You will not all learn the same words, but the ones you have will suit you. I promise." More specific, yes. More helpful, no, not really. The rock would not budge that whole summer, though he tried every day. Right when the rain began looming and the late wheat first ripened to white gold, Kraden leaned over the fence and watched the two of them, hard at play.

"Remember, Felix," he said, always the helpful academic, "It's a language." Felix shook the sweat and hair from his eyes, blowing in frustration. Could Kraden feel Alchemy in his bones? What did he know? But something about that description sunk in with his father, who straightened up. Of the gaze that passed between them, Felix caught almost nothing. He turned to stare at the rock again.

"Yes, Felix," his father whispered over him. "Learn to speak."

It was rough and worn, a chunk of speckled granite from the hills above the town. It rested in the lush grass, obstinately not hovering. For once, Felix stayed silent, watching it. It almost wanted to say something to him. The ground beneath his feet wanted to tell him something.

And Felix Spoke.

He finished cementing the sword in place, enjoying the simple task. One hand went onto the handle, and he aimed a sharp, forceful kick at the center of the blade.

The blow sunk deep into his guts, and Menardi sprang away, forever flitting out of his feeble reach. Saturos watched impassively, passing no judgment. Felix knew intuitively that this was not fair. Menardi was a fully-grown woman, in her home grounds. But the lesson, apparently, was that life was not fair. He learned to suck it up. To breathe the pain out through his pores and keep fighting.

Sometimes Saturos himself fought him. Saturos whipped him, easily and perpetually. But Felix took long walks alone, at night when his head was clearer and the world left him to rest. On those rambling expeditions, his boots crunching into the tundra, he sorted things out and formed his own opinions. There the battered thing that was Felix recovered, survived. One frozen night, looking up at the dancing green fire that hung in the northern sky, he resolved to hang his head no more. The breath that carried his promise crystallized before him and melted away. Felix would not feel shame.

From that day forward he was no better at dodging punches than before. But he did not let his head snap back or his eyes close. He tied his hair securely back, and he watched carefully. And he learned. Saturos, after all, did not want him to fail. They needed him. They just taught him like he was one of them.

One day Menardi came in low and fast, and he slid to the side. Time froze. He curled his fingers tightly, his hand shaking with effort, and drove it with all the force in his body into her stomach. Felix met her surprised wide eyes with glee, and let his buried rage show itself. They stood for a second face to face, breathing hard. Then Saturos stepped in, and smashed him soundly on the jaw. He lay on the ground, head ringing, ice melting down his neck, and contemplated a whole host of sullen and tired options.

A month ago he would have climbed to his feet. A week ago he would have done the same. And he would have gotten put right back down for his pains. He would not get up. Not right away. Bull-headed stubbornness would not serve him anymore. It was finally time to break. Saturos walked over, his contempt ringing in every footstep. Let him feel it. Felix masked his eyes, right until his foster father's hand closed around his collar. Then he looked up, gritted his teeth, and planted his foot in Saturos' knee. In the ensuing chaos, Felix ended up pinned by both of them and beaten to a pulp. But the next morning, Saturos walked with a limp and squinted at the world through one swollen eye. Menardi did not even leave her room. They left that week for Vale. He still wasn't sure what they had been trying to teach him. But he learned.

He leaned back and smashed down on the blade again, nearly toppling as his foot sprang off it. Whatever else this was, it was tough.

_No one will come to save you._

Felix knew now that much of life amounted to what you made of it. Nothing more, nothing less. Life was a morality story, but there wasn't always someone to interpret it for you.

_You don't need to know everything to live._

He had been told as a child of the afterlife, of the places to which the good and the evil went. To a child it all made a perfect, earthy sense. Children loved justice. But adults walked lines that sometimes faded or broke. And adults began to seek, timid and hopeful, after mercy instead.

_You don't deserve mercy._

Whether Felix would be forgiven or not, in these moments of clarity, did not matter. He could only do his best, which wasn't much. When this blade finally snapped, something in that crack would stand alone. Something would ring out, and maybe penetrate to the dark under the earth where his god dwelt. He could do no more than hope.

_Can't you hear hope whispering in spite of the dark?_

Felix lived in the terrible fear that no one saw his mistakes. He stayed awake late at night wondering why no one had come to save him. Fearing, too, that no one would fix the mistakes he made – though he hated to admit it to himself.

_ Those mistakes will damn you. The penalty you've set for failure is one you can never pay._

He sometimes wondered if he could have done anything else. Since leaving Vale four years ago he had been drawn through experience after experience, pulled as if on a string. What if he had refused to continue? Surely that option had been his, but he could never have taken it. It was akin to asking what would have happened if he'd lain down and died. The thought of so much rest tempted him, but this life still had a grip on his loyalties.

_ To fight is noble. But how could we learn to fight if we never lost a match?_

Even in the face of fate, Mia had argued for choice. And there was a choice. Felix kicked at the sword, feeling the depth of unexplored paths, of newly broken ground. Echo was not his conscience. And he himself could not be trusted to find virtue. For once he paused, really paused, and listened to what his inner ear rang with. In that instant those voices went silent, like crickets to an approaching footstep, waiting for him to say something back.

_Who are you who have been whispering in my ear all this time?_

No response came, but Felix felt suddenly aware of Presence. Something malevolent sulked and swirled around the sides of the ship, down among the wave-tops where no light fell. Something else entirely smiled down on him, twinkling with the pale light of the stars, far above the rainclouds and the tossing ship.

The blade gave and twanged back under his foot for the tenth or twelfth time. Sunshine knew his trade.

He paused for a shallow, sharp breath, leaning lightly on the sword. The ache in his guts persisted. A surge of fear ran down his spine, forcing him upright.

This attempt to cut his only support out from under him – what was he thinking? It threatened disaster. It amounted to ruin. It… it was a voice, he realized, as the cold truth dawned on him. It whispered frantically, writhed and clutched and begged. Part of him still wanted to stop and listen.

Felix's life had been one of pure compromise. Always the trade between strict justice and the demands of a complicated and ugly reality. He was sick of it.

If living meant destroying the only thing between him and certain death, he was willing to try it. Somewhere, across miles of darkened plains, beyond sundered oceans of untapped being, on a lonely mountain peak within his soul, a voice was singing. Somewhere within him the knowledge had come to rest that he was not yet dead. He was old, but not all things moved according to an ancient plan. He had lived and suffered long and brutally, but somewhere within him the flowers had dared to bloom before spring had even come. Not all the poetry had been rubbed and ground out of his heart. Spring! Spring might yet come!

_No!_

He clenched his jaw, feeling his lungs swell with an inexplicable burst of energy. The sword bent farther and farther back under his frenzied attack, as he threw all his weight on the weapon. His sweat-slicked hands, clutching the hilt, slid underneath him a fraction, half an inch, an inch – The sword cracked cleanly in two.

Felix, as he fell, twisted like lightning, narrowly missing impalement on the jagged point still sticking up from the deck. As he fell he saw all his life flash across his memory. All the smoke, the flame, the cries, the instants of peace and laughter, snapshots of the world in stunning, unreal beauty. He saw all their faces run past him. As the wood grain blurred toward him he saw them standing atop a solitary red pillar miles away in the snow, small and lonely figures. They would survive, he knew. They would make it to the top without him.

Somehow, he prayed sadly, let them come through unharmed. He had left so much work undone. So many dragons still coiled to spring on their unsuspecting heads. If only the gods would have mercy on a poor fool trying to do the right thing. Somewhere far away, gates creaked open, ready to receive him. His elbow collapsed sideways under him and he hit the wood hard, waiting to die.

It hurt. It still hurt.

Felix blinked, and drew breath. He opened one eyelid, and then the other. A wall of wood ran down one side of his face, and ran out before him into the darkness. He lifted his head a fraction so it became the deck of Piers' ship, the dark and spume licking at its far edge.

Still alive. He laughed, unsure whether he were disappointed or relieved. The laughter leaked out as a thin trickle from between his lips, draining into the rainwater running along the contours of his body. Sparing his stomach, he rolled onto his palms and slowly pushed himself upright, using the cabin wall.

One boot hit the fragment of blade still buried in the deck; Felix lowered himself to his knees and worked it out of the wood, kneading the puncture until it spat out the metal. Red liquid spilled from the fractured metal, and from the matching splinter still trapped under his palm. Careful not to cut himself, he brushed it overboard, leaving a trail of spattered… something. He flung the broken hilt in his hand after it. It plunged over the railing into the foaming darkness and vanished. The pounding rain dissolved the red traces on the deck, and the sword was gone.

He giggled. The wings were drying, and they ached to unfurl. Something in his chest lashed against the last of its chains and broke free, broke into the glorious eternal sunlight. He had not known, his spirit beaten into the dust, how much he had longed for this moment to set him free. Somehow, somehow, he had survived the last trial. He was here, and he was miraculously alive.

He chuckled. It sounded odd in his own ears, vibrating through his jaw, a sound unusually whole and healthy and alive. It was answered by a crack of thunder. Felix snapped to attention, his eyes alight, his nostrils flaring, and laughed in the teeth of the weather.

"Are you out there?!" Felix roared into the lashing rain, laughing uproariously. "Are you there?!"

The dark, flaring skies did not answer, for there was no need.

He whooped and growled, not even aware of the sounds in his pure, soaring exultation. He could feel the answer in the pit of his stomach, and he grinned as the rain bit into his cheeks and plastered his hair against his forehead, feeling washed clean for the first time.

A long time later, Felix subsided into a peaceful calm, though the fountains of joy still bubbled just under the surface.

_If you… if you are there. Thank you. I guess._

Above the clouds, the stars did not flare or wink in response, but neither did they vanish away. Felix felt comforted, resting in the steady, gentle warmth.

"Thank you," he whispered out loud, brimming over with something between laughter and tears. "I am free."

The whole world stretched open before him, soaked in rain like morning dew.

_I am free._ Echo's earthy laughter rumbled in the pit of his chest. They were free. Free!

The ship coursed north, crashing between luminescent foam strings. The occasional flash of lightning lit up the pale blue sea. Even the ocean's blood grew thin and white and cold, up on the roof of the world. The rain changed imperceptibly into sleet which gradually shifted into soft, drifting snow. Felix still sat, the flakes piling up around him, utterly oblivious to the cold.

* * *

><p>that was fun. Please read and review.<p> 


	19. Night

Catharsis

Night

_Felix bears a terrible fate, a burden I would not wish on any man.  
>-Hama<em>

_Oath? Oh, by promising to return, we'll be ensuring that our quest will end successfully...  
>-Sheba<br>_

"Felix," came a deep bass from above and behind him. Felix twisted like a snake, finding Garet watching him. His clothes cracked as the ice coating them shifted.

"Venus Mars JupiterandMercury," Felix said, too surprised to curse. "How long have you been standing there?"

"I can't decide whether to ask you why you're kneeling or why you took both night watches up here. It's freezing, Felix, are you crazy?" He took a breath and made the question rhetorical.

"Here's more food," he continued. "Mia can't sleep, Felix. She's been rubbing at imaginary spots on the dishes for half an hour. She asked me to give you this." In his hand rested another plate, with the tip of a pile of food peeking over the rim.

Felix felt the first tiny pinpricks of concern come stabbing through his joy. Back into reality. It felt so wrong to pretend misery again, now that he'd broken through into this. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself upright and faced his friend. He ached all over.

He took the plate and pushed everything in greedily, barely tasting it. What a wonderful thing, to be starving again at last. What a feeling to be human. Garet danced gently around his jerking elbows and wrists, arranging a thick coat on his shoulders, jamming fur down on his slick, icy hair.

When he finished he shook his arm into the sleeve of the coat, transferring the plate to the other hand, and switched it back to shrug it all the way on. This was a nice coat. Not his. He held the sleeve out for inspection, noting the deep navy blue. Piers'.

"Thanks, Garet," he said.

Garet sighed, the cloud poofing out from the blackness of an enormous, pointed hood. Snowflakes were already beginning to collect on top of his head.

"Felix, you need to get inside. You're going to freeze to death."

"Honestly, Garet, I can barely feel it," Felix said.

"Because you can't feel anything at all, stupid." Garet took the plate from him and set it on the deck. Staying in a crouch, he struck a flame off his hands. The flame bloomed wider, higher, and warmer than was possible, particularly with no fuel.

There had been many times in the course of his life Felix had been intensely, supremely grateful for the existence of Mars Adepts. He could already feel his bones thawing.

"Thanks, Garet," he said.

"I hate it up here," Garet said conversationally. "Boats make me sick. They never hold still."

"…Sorry."

"It's beautiful," Garet continued, as if he'd never spoken. "It's definitely very pretty, and I like looking at the snow. But there is just too much damned water right now."

Felix sighed.

"Garet, I know you're mad at me. I know you're all disappointed."

The hood shifted up to point in his direction.

"Felix, I just- I don't know what to say. You've already heard enough from us, but it's not affecting you at all. You've changed."

"Time and death will do that to you," Felix remarked. He wanted to talk so badly, for once. To tell Garet everything. But this was the price he had agreed to pay.

"I used to know you, Felix," Garet said. "I don't think I do anymore." He let that hang for a moment. "But I don't particularly want to fight with you right now. I came up here to talk to you about something else."

Felix said nothing, and Garet plunged in.

"What are we going to do about this oath, Felix?"

"Oath?" Felix said, his senses coming fully alive. This could mean trouble. Melted water dripped down his hair, escaping underneath the fur cap Garet had found somewhere. He scratched at it unobtrusively.

"We swore to Vale that we wouldn't light the lighthouses. That we would guard them, keep… you… from lighting them. But now we know so much more," Garet said, his brows knitted. He looked like nothing more than a kid caught in the cookies. Felix tried hard to keep a tiny smile from lifting his mouth. This, after all, was deadly serious. What he said now would be crucially important.

"Yeah," Felix said, trying to think. On top of trying to use this situation for his long-term ends, he found himself wrestling with an almost contrary desire: to tell Garet something that would actually help him.

This was the other piece of the problem. Felix knew what the consequences would be for himself. But his preparations to accept them had been long in the making.

He wanted them all to be absolutely safe from the consequences of lighting the last beacon. But if they were left free to do whatever they pleased, Isaac would go straight back to Vale and insist on explaining that Felix's action had been his idea.

As children they had all sworn before the altar to do their part in keeping the bane of man locked safely away. The pact had been witnessed to by Venus, or so the priests told them, and he would not look kindly on its dissolution. Retribution would follow as naturally as an avalanche or a falling tree. Just one of those impartial, irrational, remorseless things of nature.

Piers would do his best to explain, but Piers was a stranger. They would argue valiantly and stubbornly and be defeated in the end. They would be exiled, if plagues and demons had not already struck the whole town. Not much of a triumphant homecoming.

He couldn't take the risk. He couldn't let even the chance of unlooked-for fate striking them down, his sister or Sheba or Isaac, death fluttering above their throats with razor-sharp claws. Felix would be gladly damned before he saw his chance go by to alter the course of those inevitable weights.

He saw the faint hazy outline of an insane addition to his scheme forming, and he opened his mouth and looked up.

Garet's eyes met his.

The words died on his tongue. He couldn't do it. He couldn't tell Garet a lie.

"I..." he said. He couldn't decide whether to bless or curse that last little shred of morality.

"I don't know," he finally said.

_Oh, how many things I wish I could tell you. _

"I don't know, Garet," he said again. "We'll think of something."

In fact, he had already thought of something. He bit his lip and accepted the truth. The plan was falling apart too fast now. They were beginning to wonder, and asking too many good questions. Felix had failed to come up with a good answer for the first time since Contigo. It was time for him to go, alone, and finish what he had started so many years ago.

"Think of something when?" Garet asked.

_This is not a good time for you_ _to develop a stubborn streak, Garet. _

"I don't know," Felix said again, putting some more weight on it.

"All right," Garet said. "I guess that's fair."

"I'm sorry, Garet," he said. Finally, something that came easily from his lips. "I'm so sorry."

Garet sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with one huge hand.

"It's been a tough trip for all of us," he said. "That's not entirely your fault." Their eyes met. Felix always knew when to take Garet perfectly seriously.

"But," he said, "Felix, I love Mia like she's my sister. We've been through a lot together. …And, um, she really likes you."

Felix felt his heart plummet into the depths of a dark, dark well and vanish forever. It… it hadn't worked. Damn. And something in his head whispered, _you knew this all along. _He'd known. He had seen the looks she shot at him, the way she talked, the way she fussed. But he'd ignored it, because it fell across the carefully laid tracks of his plans, and smudged them. It spoke, in a powerful and insistent tone older than his scheming, to a small hill in his soul where wildflowers grew, and something within him spoke in response.

"I'm not too bright, but I can see the way she looks at you," Garet said somberly and sadly. "You …you know."

Felix bowed his head and swallowed. As if he could swallow a failure of this magnitude. It tasted like dust, dry as old bones, despite the snow. He had failed Mia, alone among them, failed her utterly. She had not allowed him to pull a blindfold over her eyes, and his heart shattered with admiration.

Garet, unknowing, had chosen his return strike well. This plan of his would utterly crush her. Felix himself, the hurtling weights of dark fate and dark choices and the chain of events they would set in motion, all loomed over the head of the pretty, slender girl from Imil.

It hadn't worked. It hadn't worked.

Poor Mia. None of this was her fault. He almost smiled, but caught the fatal mistake in time. She was too good for him, by the gods. What a woman. If only they could have met on better terms.

"I don't deserve this," Felix said.

"You know, I've been thinking about that a lot," Garet said, straightening up. "Most of us don't think you do either."

Felix smiled softly. At least he was honest.

"But I think you did, once," Garet said, looking out into the deep. Flurries of snow obscured his expression. "How much of you can change in a lifetime, Felix? Are you still the same person you once were?"

Deep questions, from Garet; but Felix knew he shouldn't feel surprised. They had always been swimming far below the surface. And now he had to reach into the water and kill them as best he could.

"To be honest, Garet," Felix said, "I don't remember who I used to be. I loved my life, but it's a blur to me now."

"Um," Garet grunted.

"I missed all of you, Garet," Felix said, daring a moment of honesty. "I wish I could be your friend. I mean that."

Garet flinched.

"Why can't you be, Felix?" he whispered. The heartstrings rubbed raw, Felix thought. All of them.

"Because…because whoever I was, Garet, that's not who I am anymore. Life can change you."

Life was like a roaring river. It went where it wanted, and it wore you down to match its currents. You could stand against its power if you felt like trying, but not forever. Felix had thrown his life away to act as a dam. Just a twig in the stream, bending its back to the snapping point so that everything below it might stay dry for as long as it could.

"Don't break her heart, Felix," Garet said.

"I don't want to, Garet," Felix said, shaking his head. "I swear. I'll do my very best. I promise you that."

"All right," Garet said, leaving neither of them satisfied.

Something at the ship's nose creaked, and the whole vessel shifted under a new weight. Felix rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the ground. Garet's fire vanished abruptly.

Garet was already up and heading forward.

"Garet," Felix called. The big shoulders paused. He squirmed, pushing his hands into the frozen folds of his clothes. There was a ... ah. Here it was. His fingers closed on the handle of the kitchen knife he'd stolen earlier. "Let's do this one on our own, eh? For old times' sake."

Garet considered it. Further pillaging noises filled the interim.

"All right," he said. He stopped Felix's advance with a word. "Where's your sword?"

Felix looked at him, caught at last without a single thing to say. Garet stared back while the wheels spun, and then suddenly his face lit up with a glow almost bright enough to see by. Felix smiled uncertainly back, and they ran for the prow.

* * *

><p>Isaac hated uncertainty. He passed Mia a plate freshly scraped and grabbed the next filthy patient. His ears were filled with the sound of rushing water. He didn't know what to do with himself, where to attack or defend.<p>

Life among the plains and hills was just simpler. There was no way around it.

The red traces of weeping were still sunk into Mia's cheeks, try as she might to hide them with smiles. Isaac longed like a trapped animal for the days when they slept and fought and marched, with a goal as clear as a ray of sunlight and no problems worse than complaining stomachs. The clouds were rolling in these days, and the sun seemed like a relic of a dream. The rain rattled above them.

There had been a day when they believed. He rubbed furiously at a tiny sticky spot. They believed every dream would come true, that they fought and bled for something that lay just over the next hill. Someone had lied to him. He handed the plate off to Mia and grabbed another.

He had Jenna with him. He smiled faintly. The scent of her flowing red hair eased an ache that had bothered him for two years. But Isaac knew enough to acknowledge that he needed something more. He needed to know why.

"Thanks, Isaac," Mia said. He looked up, into her worn face. Still trying to be cheerful, and she would until the world itself ended. Why did she bother? What was she trying to preserve? Their faith had been shattered, their hope stolen. What was the use of each pretending for the sake of all the others? It was over.

"Are you okay?" she said, her face contracting into concern. "I can finish these."

But Isaac said nothing. Partly because he feared he was wrong, and she would be disappointed by his cynicism. Partly because part of him still clung to the heights, still stayed strong. Even if they already knew, it was worth trying to keep them in the dark. Even if no lights shone above them, if all was ultimately dark, he still wanted to pretend.

Mia didn't need his help, so he moved dazedly out into the common room. He cast himself into a chair and frowned at the wall.

Isaac had a nightmare that haunted him sometimes. Early on in their journey, when everything had still made sense, the winds of chance had blown them to a little mining town in the hills called Altin. Isaac had seen the lights burning low among the stones from miles and miles away. They entered the town square around midmorning.

Altin had a problem with runaway Psynergy. The falling debris of the Sanctum explosion had landed here, as elsewhere, and taken up residence in stone statues in the mines. Water rushed and tore through the ancient halls and side ways, drowning a livelihood. Isaac had listened patiently to this problem, as he had listened patiently to many others, and as he would listen patiently to quite a few more. He felt within himself an eager tug of pity and sympathy – a desire to reach a hand down from the moral high ground, as he had felt many times before. The world had so many problems; he couldn't help but feel that his could take second place sometimes.

Of course he would help the miners. Poor, scruffy people, grubbing out their existence without the benefit of Psynergy or the shining causes that filled him with meaning – how could he not?

Isaac sat down heavily in a chair in the common room, not hearing the springs creak. A candle was lit on the table. He stared deep into the flickering flame.

So he had fought his way downward, with his trusty sword and trusty Djinn and trusted comrades, before, behind, and beside him. They had surprised the stone dragons on every level, cut them down with heavy blows, watched the water run out past soaking boots and clothes and drip to nothing.

Isaac woke up drenched, some nights. He still felt the weight of his wet pants, the ends of his scarf heavy with magical water, his boots squelching with every step further downward into the dark.

They suffered for hours. Tinges of pink swirled in the white foam and black current as fangs and talons and animal rage did their work in the dark, chipped away at their resolve. Hurt them. The mine itself seemed to grow dimmer, darker, more mysterious. The passages narrowed and grew black, and the stairways gaped like open throats. Isaac grew more curious as the world grew more foreboding. What was hidden from them, that the dark fought so hard to protect?

At the very bottom, they had killed the last of them. In the last end of the mine, deep in the earth, Isaac's anticipation reached fever peak. What were these guardians protecting? What did they fight so hard to keep a secret from the outside world?

Nothing would have been more surprising than what he found. A perfectly finished room, a room clearly built by older and more patient and long vanished hands. An empty room.

Isaac couldn't believe it. He never could say why he had so strongly wanted there to be _something –_ a door, a chest, bones, anything. All he got was the bare, hard floor and walls he searched every inch of.

Isaac returned to the world of the daylight, and brushed off the gratitude of Altin with easy assurance. But that room, that inexplicably, damnably empty room in the bowels of the earth, stuck in his mind like a splinter. It worked its way deeper and deeper in and became a fascination, a diseased, inflamed sore Isaac couldn't resist probing and poking at.

He dreamed about it at night, and sweated, and woke and cursed under his breath. For part of him dared to pry up the floorboards of the universe, and see what lay beneath. Part of him wondered how much of the cosmos was empty rooms. Would you fight and fight, deeper and deeper, sweating as each new blow made the sword heavier, wading through water that seemed to get thicker with each step, only to find…. nothing?

He ran his aching, stained fingers through his hair, tugged absently at his scarf and scratched his chin. This room bore a haunting resemblance to another one. Another ship, in another sea, in another world. One that had been a cozy home to him and his little family. This ship might never be. In fact, that family might have vanished without a trace while his back was turned.

* * *

><p>Felix swung high while Garet swung low. They both moved carefully and surely, telegraphing their intentions far in advance. Learning to work together. Felix risked shoving a section of the deck upward, knocking some grotesque thing off balance enough that Garet could roast it. It was a far cry from the tightly knit, deadly efficiency Saturos and Menardi used to have. It was clumsy, difficult, and poor, but it was a start.<p>

A warbling cry came from behind and above him. He whirled, a stab of fear making him furious. How had something snuck past? A jelly, flopping wetly up the rigging to the crow's nest. Felix jammed the dripping knife between his teeth, grimacing at the taste, and jumped for the ropes. The rigging was slick with coated ice, and his fingers flew sideways until they caught on the vertical. He immediately leaped for the next one up with his other hand, the ice burning his palm. The jelly wiggled upward in a manner seemingly designed to be infuriating. Felix growled through his clenched teeth and kept climbing, kicking at his footholds to knock the ice off.

Right at the top he caught up with the cursed thing, slipped the knife from between his teeth, and stretched up, up… he flinched downward and sideways as a blast of lightning nearly took off the top of his head. He fell sideways off the ladder, eyes seared by the sudden light. The singed remains of the jelly disappeared into the blackness below as he swung by the white knuckles of one hand. Felix gripped the rope tightly, trying to control his swaying and not stab himself with the knife in his off hand. His heart thumped furiously as he swayed, and his mouth flooded with the taste of sheer panic. Somehow he managed to fumble the knife into the outside pocket of Piers' coat and kicked out, his toes finally gaining a hold on the ropes below. Reaching with the other hand for the ladder, he hung from its underside, his back resting against the sheer wall of the tower. Snowflakes gathered on his eyelashes as he tried to regain his vision.

"Sorry," came a voice from above. "It surprised me. Are you all right?"

Felix nodded.

"Yeah. Who is that, Ivan?"

"Yup. Here, I'll pull you up."

Felix shook him off, adjusting his position, swallowing his terror. Gods, he hated heights. How had he gotten up here?

"I-I'm fine. What are you doing up there?"

"Enjoying the weather," Ivan said. "Like a certain someone else I know."

The decks below had finally fallen quiet, Felix realized. Hopefully Garet was okay.

"What's that…supposed to mean," Felix said to fill the silence, trying to work his way around to the outside of the ladder. It nearly stopped his heart to pry his fingers off, one at a time, and move his hands to a new spot.

"I can feel it, Felix," Ivan said. "I know it's gone for good now."

Felix blinked as the world returned to him. He forced himself to breathe, deep and slow.

"I've got to get down from here, Ivan," he said. "Just give me a second."

He worked his way down the ladder as quickly as he dared, only able to breathe again when his feet touched the wood at the bottom. Ivan was standing next to him already. Felix forced air in and out of his lungs, pushing his senses to focus on the decks. They were thankfully silent. Though he heard no noise, something in the air told him Garet was just out of sight in the dark. He breathed a little easier, feeling the tight, ever-present knot of responsibility loosen in his chest. His fingers twitched violently.

"Are you afraid of heights, Felix?" Ivan had been silently studying him.

"Um…"

"You don't have to be embarrassed," Ivan said quietly. "I don't like caves all that much."

"You hide it well," Felix responded gruffly. Everyone else functioned just fine in every environment. He was such a pansy. It was no more dangerous up there than it was down here. He just lost his head in the air. He stared up through the swirling whiteness to the top of the tower.

"Don't kick yourself, Felix," Ivan said. "It's okay to be afraid."

Felix had to smile. Getting lectured by this kid. This immensely powerful little ball of Jupiter energy.

"You don't believe me, do you," Ivan said.

"No," Felix said. "I don't."

Saturos had never feared anything in his short, fiery life. He smashed his way through everything with the same careless, roguish smirk. Felix hated him. He'd start fights for the sheer black lust of it. Just to point out by way of contrast how much of a coward Felix was. Just to prove things about himself and about Felix that everyone agreed on already.

Someday, Felix would not be afraid of anything.

"What happened to your sword?" Ivan asked.

"It wasn't my sword," Felix mumbled, feeling stupid. Of course it was his. He and the blade belonged to one another.

Ivan shook his head vigorously. His blazing purple eyes came to rest on Felix's again.

"No. No it wasn't. I'm glad you see that."

Felix thought about how to respond to that assumption. Ivan took advantage of the opening.

"We are more than the sum of our weaknesses, Felix," he said, the violet depths of his irises seeming to glow. Felix shivered slightly as the snow slid by. "Remember that."

_Why do you waste your time talking to me? _Felix thought. _I know what I am. _

_How you act, and who you are, are not quite the same, Felix. _Ivan flashed him a thought impossible to put into words, with streamers of emotion trailing from its edges.

Garet walked up.

"Good to see you're okay," he said, much happier than previously. "Ivan? What are you doing out here?"

"Watching and waiting," Ivan responded mysteriously. Garet shook his head and chuckled.

"Whatever." His oversized hood shifted to Felix, a small pile of white fluff spilling off with the movement. "I was gonna go inside and tell everyone you've finally done it, but I think we should surprise them, yeah?"

"Um." This sort of thing was why Felix liked planning ahead. People with lives to hide couldn't afford to live spontaneously. "Yeah. Surprise them. Good plan." He'd already thought about it though, he remembered. This wouldn't affect anything too much. Right.

"So c'mon," Garet said, shooing at him. It took Felix a second to process that bit.

"Wait, surprise them right now?"

"Yeah!" Garet said. No. Definitely not. No way.

"I've got a watch to finish," Felix muttered.

"I'll do it for you. You're soaked to the bone and freezing anyway, Felix. Go inside. You don't have to make a spectacle out of it. Don't say anything. You're good at that."

Felix couldn't help wondering, with the slightest resentment, where this streak of sarcasm had come from. He knew he was going to give in. Free of the curse, maybe, but he certainly wasn't healthy, and he didn't particularly want to die right then. He needed to get inside and warm up.

"Come on, Felix," Ivan said with a knowing smile, offering his hand. "I'll protect you." Felix ignored him temporarily, focusing on his replacement.

"Do you know what to do, Garet?"

"Yeah, kill all the monsters, right? Easy." Felix rolled his eyes.

"This is why Mars Adepts don't stand watch. You hate boats. Let me do it."

"No, no, I got this," Garet said breezily. "Hoist the anchors and rig the swab decks and so forth. I picked up the lingo from Piers."

"Garet-"

"_Felix_. I may not know much but I know we are miles from land in any direction, and I can read a map. This ship will survive my mismanagement for a few lousy hours."

Felix sighed. He was right. "Okay. Thanks, Garet."

Garet threw him a salute and moved off toward the bow. Ivan had stood motionless.

"Shall we go?" Ivan asked, putting his hand on Felix's upper arm to turn him. There was a hesitation in the movement that Felix caught, and he stopped moving. The gentle pressure remained.

"Can you hear what I'm thinking, Ivan?" he asked quietly. Sheba had done this to him many times. He never had the heart to snap at her about it, but she had stopped eventually. Jenna had helped him out, he suspected.

"Only if you want me to," Ivan said in an equally subdued tone. "I learned my lesson a long time ago. But I can see who you really are, Felix."

No wonder he had shuddered.

"I'm sorry," Felix said. "You don't have to touch me, you know."

"The fact that I can touch you at all means I am not frightened by what I see," Ivan said. "Where do you think I've been these last few weeks?"

Felix yielded to the pressure and started walking the few steps to the door. His boots crunched in the snow.

"I was hiding from you," Ivan finished, and Felix paused for a second with his hand on the doorknob. "That sword coated you with crawling darkness."

Felix clenched the knob, finding that he was afraid to ask. He swallowed two or three times, shook his head to clear it.

"Um." He fell silent again, and then spoke. "What…what do I look like now?"

Ivan did not respond. Felix listened to his own breathing for a few seconds, then half-turned. Ivan was smiling slightly, and not in sorrow.

* * *

><p>Felix winced at every creak his steps made, loudly announcing his presence in the cabin. Fortunately no one was in the room at present save Ivan and himself. His body suddenly pointed out to him that if he could just get to the staircase he might be able to get to bed. That sounded glorious.<p>

"No," Felix mumbled. "Gotta stay up." In case they needed him. He had to be ready. Had to be alert.

"What was that, Felix?" Ivan said softly.

"Nothing." He kept taking short steps towards the stairs, setting his feet down as gently as he could. Maybe he could just close his eyes for a few seconds. Thaw out. His hair and clothes were still frozen, and he felt chilled through to the bone.

"Are you going downstairs, Felix?" Ivan asked, letting go of his arm. "I'll stay up here." He nodded and smiled, moving toward a chair. "Sleep well."

Sleep. Dammit. He wanted to close his eyes and drift so badly. There were so few strings keeping him tied. He felt his feet bobbing, ready to leave the ground.

"Felix," Ivan said. He turned blankly. Understanding shone through Ivan's gentle smile.  
>"Felix, just go to sleep. If you don't rest, how can you hope to be strong?"<p>

Felix narrowed his gaze, nodding slowly at Ivan as his words sank in. Without the sword anymore, Felix would need to watch himself much more closely. There were only a few miles left to go.

* * *

><p>Mia threw the dishrag into the bottom of the sink, finally done with the cleaning. At least something had been accomplished tonight. She ran a water-wrinkled hand along the counter one last time, making sure everything looked tidy. Good.<p>

Felix's screaming still echoed in her ears. She couldn't have told any of the others, because she knew how badly it sounded, but that sound had lifted her spirits immensely. When that inhuman, awful noise had come from Felix's throat, she knew it meant he hadn't given up.

She had been terribly afraid, when he'd told her to stop trying, that he saw something like the end approaching. That he'd finally either seen a way to escape or decided to take one he'd known about all along. His voice, his eyes, had been so flat and final. His heartbeat had echoed through her imagination, slowly fading down to a standstill. And she had known at last that she couldn't bear to live without him anymore. She couldn't have woken up the morning after he died. Felix needed to live. She needed to help him prove to himself that he wasn't a failure. If he died… the game they were playing with the universe would be lost. They had to win.

She had known when Felix cried out that he still wrestled, still breathed, still fought. Felix couldn't just let himself go. The world owed him too much explanation and apology. Piers had seen it too. Piers had understood. Maybe Isaac knew, maybe Garet knew. Maybe they all knew a little bit of it, deep in their souls.

_Hang in there, _she'd whispered under her breath over and over for the rest of the meal. _Hang in there, Felix. You can do it. You can win this._

Mia left the kitchen, closing the door gently behind her. Ivan met her eyes, curled up in a chair across the room.

"Felix is downstairs sleeping," he said, looking suspiciously cheerful. Mia knew Ivan's moods like the back of her hand, and something was definitely not wrong.

"What happened?" she asked.

Ivan only smiled and tossed his head toward the stairs. Mia walked slowly over, keeping her eyes curiously on him. What would meet her down there? She took a first step, then another, down into the dim hall. Felix didn't have a room down here. She'd have to just check each door until she found him.

_Hang in there, Felix. _But nothing was wrong, oddly enough. What had happened?

The bloodstains on her door were still there, faint, dark and dry. She put her own hand on the door just above the marks of Felix's fingers and pushed gently. A dark shape lay bundled on her bed.

"Felix?" she whispered, tiptoeing closer. It was him all right. His eyes were open.

"I keep forgetting this is not my room," he said. "I'm losing my mind."

"It's okay," she said. "I want you to sleep."

"I would have left as soon as I realized, but I ended up here," he said, looking at her. He hadn't even taken his boots off. She didn't particularly want his muddy shoes on her sheets.

As she pulled the stiff buckles loose and gripped the cracked leather, he kept talking.

"What do you miss the most about Imil?" he said. She flinched for a second, then tugged on his boot until it came off. She had the other one halfway done before she found the voice to answer.

"I miss my father," she muttered hoarsely.

"I didn't know he was still there," Felix remarked.

"H-he's not," she said, softer than a whisper. The other boot fell to the floor with a final-sounding thud.

"I'm sorry," Felix said gently.

She shook her head, trying to avoid the flood of images, sounds, smells, colors, places. Her father's face. His dry, shaking hands. The cough youthful innocence had not noticed until it grew too loud to ignore. Staring through Felix's frame on the bed, she noticed the edges of his form were blurring slightly.

"Felix, you're freezing," she said aloud. "You're shivering."

"F-f-f-f…" he responded.

"Get out of bed," she said with quick decision. "C'mon, get up." He groaned slightly but complied after she prodded him. His clothes were sodden and ice-cold.

"All right, all right, I'm up," he said, sliding wet feet to the floor. Felix resembled a drowned scarecrow, she thought in horror. The cloth clinging to his ribs fully revealed his shrunken state. He couldn't hide it under layers of bags anymore.

Wasting not a second she closed her eyes, diving deep into the wells lying still within her. She reached out for the water surrounding him, kneaded into the fabric and beaded on his skin. It would dry up and vanish. Mia imagined it so, knitting her brow in concentration, and eventually a familiar cold white heat rewarded her patience. Eyes still closed, she heard the sound of steam rising off Felix and disappearing into nothing. It took quite a while to get it all. She pushed through cloak, scarf, hair, sweater, long-sleeved shirt… and paused, hesitating. One more layer. Through the shirt was Felix's bare skin. Mia felt a flush rising and gritted her teeth. He needed to be warm. She pushed through and touched him, evaporating everything.

When she opened her eyes again he was rubbing his arms with a slightly bemused look on his face. A few final wisps of steam were rising from gaps in his clothes.

"Thanks," he said.

"Stay there," she said, hiding her embarrassment with flustered action. "I'll be right back." She rushed out into the hallway, taking long strides toward the back of the ship. With the crisis, a dim memory of Piers' tour and something about spare linen had forced its way into her mind. The closet stood right where she'd left it; she yanked open both doors and pulled out a selection of thick white sheets at random. The huge wad of material felt smooth and soft against her face as she bundled it back to where Felix waited.

Felix had not waited. He lay in bed again with his eyes quite closed. She dumped everything on Jenna's bed and huffed slightly.

"Sorry," he said, cracking one eye open. "What did you want to show me?"

"Nothing," she said lightly.

"Mia, I'm filthy. Just wreck new sheets. Don' mind."

"Yeah, but those are soaking wet," she objected. "I just got you all dry."

"Don' care," he mumbled, halfway to dreamland. He was really cute when he was nearly asleep.

"All right," she said, taking two steps closer. She seized the coverlet, folded at the foot of the bed, and pulled it up to his chin. Felix drew a deep breath as she fluttered around his head and let it out very slowly.

"Mia. …Thank you," he said. "I'm fine."

"Alright," she said, stepping back. "Okay. I'll let you sleep. Okay."

At the door she paused, holding it open just a crack, unwilling to just leave him.

"Thanks, Mia," he slurred.

"You're welcome," she whispered, smiling to herself, and clicked the door shut.

* * *

><p>Jenna loved sneaking. She always had. As far as she cared, it wasn't a dirty or ugly thing. She just played a game with everyone else, a game they didn't always know they were in. She liked feeling invisible, slipping between the cracks in life. She took a soft, cat's-paw step out into the hall, her senses dancing on a razor's edge, and shot across into the comforting arms of darkness once more. She liked slipping behind the veil of the world, becoming not another person but just part of the background. It taught her things about her friends and family she never would have learned otherwise.<p>

Felix had always been the best at finding her. He passed the test her invisibility had set up. Most of the time the administrative duties their quest had forced on him were uppermost in his mind. He was too busy organizing and being practical to play games with her. But sometimes his older self was uppermost, and then he joined in with a will, pretending he noticed nothing. After all, she would always be his little sister. He tried to let her play, he really did, and she loved him for it. But she watched him with bated breath every time she hid, and she always could tell he knew. He respected her enough to let her remain invisible when she wanted to, to ignore the shifting lights and subtly wrong silhouettes his trained senses caught. Still, his movements were just a little too forced, a little too exaggerated. He knew. It spoiled the fun, even though intellectually she was glad he was the kind of person who took time to notice.

He never noticed anymore. Felix was a ship whose nose had filled with water, bashed in by too many head-on collisions with the waves. He rode heavy and low, and sank just a little bit more with each new moment.

She spun in the hallway in time to kiss her back against the wall, and shifted her momentum sideways. No one approached in either direction, so she left sliding against the wall's scant security and ran, lightly and nearly silent. She'd been graced by birth with agility, with the speed and suppleness of wildfire before the wind. To exercise it was her delight.

Jenna liked to think that no one had noticed the cloak orb was now firmly in her possession, but she knew if Isaac needed it he would know who to ask. It gave her the extra edge she needed to completely defeat her physicality, her annoying inability to be utterly flat, utterly silent, utterly immaterial.

She shifted down and dropped into the shadows. Piers' ship was full of convenient nooks on the lower levels. There weren't too many monsters sharing the spaces with her. She had a little heat simmering and ready to go just in case.

Sheba saw her. Sheba was too innocent and too alive to know she wasn't supposed to look. Jenna could have been annoyed by it, but she instead chose to relish the challenge. She would know how stealthy she really was, and she'd get better slowly.

She felt her own breath curling around the edge of the wall as she peeked across it into the murk beyond. These depths were not very well lit. Down here with the darkness and the warmth she felt closer to fire. The Psynergy radiating out in waves from the ship's core stabilized her. The water felt farther away.

She rolled forward and shot out, further into the darkness. Behind her, light escaping in flat rays from the door upward grew dimmer and dimmer.

Ivan probably could feel her if he wanted to. She liked Ivan. He reminded her of a telescope or a compass. A sensitive instrument that saw things. As much as it was possible to be fond of someone who seemed only half human sometimes, unnaturally tamed and peaceful for a little kid, she liked him.

Mia never saw her. Jenna loved to laugh about that. Now, she liked Mia. Everyone liked Mia. Just when she seemed to be nothing more than a mouse, scampering along the edges of their lives, something would happen that would strip away the fur and reveal the threads of steel beneath. Quiet, but not too quiet. It was impossible not to like Mia.

Jenna smiled, peering alertly into the inky spaces beyond. Considering how much she hated water, and how much she hated water Psynergy, it was surprising she liked the two Mercury Adepts in the group at all. But Piers was just as much fun as Mia was. A lot harder to avoid, though.

The door creaked loudly in the hallway behind her and she flattened herself into a corner instantly, rolling the cloak orb between her fingers. Footsteps creaked toward her and the low sound of voices swelled as she tried to suspend her breathing entirely.

"I wonder whether he put it all down here somewhere. Felix is usually good about putting stuff back where it goes." Piers, definitely.

"Maybe usually, but he's been pretty preoccupied lately." Hmm. The boots creaked right outside the doorway. "Can't say I'm too mad at him." Oh. Garet. Interesting pair.

They stepped into the darkness where she was, Garet holding a small flame before him in his palm.

"Too bad the lights aren't working down here anymore," Piers commented. "I wouldn't know how to fix that."

Jenna had helped them into the grave a little bit. She stifled a smirk.

"Almost there," Garet said. "It's fine. At least there isn't anything else waiting to jump us."

A wild idea entered Jenna's head, and her eyes grew wide. To hide, or not to hide?

"Oop! Here it is. Maybe he was working on something earlier." Garet toed the dim outline of a bag.

"Good," Piers said. "Grab it and we'll head back up." Garet hefted the bag, causing its contents to shift and clink metallically.

Jenna spent her precious seconds carefully, waiting until the precise right instant. She slid her fingers, still pinching the marble, into her pocket in a slow, careful movement. When Garet was close enough for her to see his pupils, orange in the dancing light from his palm, she dropped the marble into her pocket and jumped out into the doorway.

"BOO!"

"WHOOOAA MY GODS," Garet roared, rearing back and dropping the clattering bag. As his flame vanished, darkness flooded the hall. Piers let escape an extremely unfortunate high-pitched squeak. Jenna tore off for the stairs, laughing like a demon.

"JENNA," Garet shouted, his clumping footsteps eating up the distance between them. Jenna kept laughing. She could make it up before he caught her. She was the fire before the wind.

"Garet!" Piers yelled sharply. "Garet, come back. I can't see anything." Right as she began scrambling up the stairs, she caught the sound of him chuckling – and swearing - quietly.

* * *

><p>Ivan narrowed his eyes. This was the most critical step. He needed to be sure he wasn't missing anything. He flicked his eyes along the top of his cards one last time, and threw one out before him. He met Sheba's thin stare across the rim of her hand. She drew a card.<p>

"I still don't understand this," Isaac said, his chin buried in his hands. He leaned over the back of an armchair, elbows out along the top, peering down at the site of Psynergetic battle.

"Yeah, me neither," Mia responded from the other side of the field, back against the wall and knees drawn up to her chest.

Ivan sighed. How many explanations were necessary?

"Why don't you just play with your cards on the table if you're allowed to read the other player's mind?" Isaac asked for the second or third time. "I don't get it."

"Because if the cards are visible you can just read them," Kraden said, leaning forward over Sheba. His hands were clasped and his elbows balanced on his knees, and he was only using about the first inch of his seat. "This requires Psynergetic skill. It's excellent practice."

"But how do you play a game if you know exactly what the other guy's cards are?" Isaac insisted. "Doesn't seem like it's possible to win."

"It's possible," Kraden said. "It's definitely possible. It's much harder, since your opponent won't give you cards you need."

Sheba made a face at that and dropped a card. Ivan knew even before it landed, and snagged it. One step closer to victory.

"So you have to trick them into giving it to you," Kraden continued. "The other player knows your emotions and ideas, so presumably the Psynergetic layer of the game relies on several layers of misdirection and keeping emotional distance from any particular strategy or card."

Bingo. That Kraden knew a lot more than you'd think, watching him trip over things.

"I'm getting a headache just thinking about it," Isaac muttered, dropping his face down into the top of the armchair again. His eyes stayed alert and sharp.

"Why haven't I ever seen this before, Ivan?" Mia asked from the floor.

"Sheba taught me the rules," Ivan said, grateful for the distraction. He let his mind focus on the Contigo beach where they'd first become one group. "I never thought to try it."

Ivan thought as hard as he could about the shore, and the sea. Pictured the waves rolling across each other, little x's on the beach. Sheba slowly drew a card, avoiding looking at what was on its face. Eventually she had to. She had no choice. If she wanted to win she needed to incorporate what luck had given her into her plans, and those plans were his for the perusing.

Her eyes darted across its face and he immediately plunged into the map of her psyche. He saw a shimmering wall, a painting of a memory. A house with lights on in the windows. He checked every corner, intent on the tiny details. The windows were lit, but frosted. He couldn't see anything inside. The exterior edges of the image faded into shadows and ragged black. There were stones in a path leading up to the front door. Their facades could never be entirely divorced from their strategy or what they were really thinking about, so they concealed and misled rather than trying to put up a blank wall.

He slowly, slowly extended his fingers, trying to buy time to read the picture before he drew his next card.

They were limited by the number of cards they held in their hands. Each new card forced an old one out into the draw pile between them. That card could make the difference between victory and defeat for a careful, hungry opponent.

Three steps up to the porch of Sheba's house, Ivan saw without thinking. His fingers touched the top card on the deck. The tiles on the roof were a multiple of three along the spine and down the eaves. Then he started paying attention. The roof tiles were reddish, faintly.

Red three. He snapped the card out of the deck toward him. Sheba didn't want it, but she wanted him to think she wanted it. His new card was a blue ten. Meanwhile he kept up his…

Blue ocean. Yellow beach. Green trees. Oh no. He quickly went through, trying to change the numbers of everything.

Sheba smiled craftily.

The sudden noise of feet pounding up stairs made him glance up. A door exploded open and Jenna raced by, with Garet's thundering boots following close behind. After the noise of their chase had circled the room twice, laughing and roaring, and then vanished into the interior of the ship, a third voice was heard. Piers' feet carried him wearily and cautiously to the tip of the staircase. He staggered over to the card players, covered in cobwebs and dust and sporting a decent bruise above his left eye.

"What the heck happened to you?" Isaac remarked, flipping around on the armchair for a better view.

"Jenna happened to me," Piers said. "And Garet happened to me, and a wall, and the floor." He flopped down next to Isaac, making his chair squeal in protest.

A card flapped to the floor. Ivan exhaled slowly. The waves punched the side of the ship.

"I ought to go back out," Piers said. "No one's steering."

Isaac raised an eyebrow. Sometimes it was difficult to adjust to Piers' casual attitude toward navigation.

"Yeah, maybe," he commented neutrally. "Isn't Garet supposed to be out there?"

"He's fixing a steering linkage below decks. Or maybe he's still chasing Jenna around. One or the other."

Isaac continued to radiate casual disapproval until Piers looked over and smiled.

"The steering wheel is locked in place," he said.

"Doesn't mean we're going the right way," Isaac responded. "I'll do it if you want a break. Put some ice on your face." He shoved himself off the chair and stretched, cracking a joint in his back.

"No, I'll… oh okay. Thanks," Piers said, sinking into the depths of his seat. Isaac grinned. He needed some fresh air.

* * *

><p>Outside Isaac leaned on the rail, letting the icy night wind rip the knots out of his hair. He narrowed his eyes, watching a flapping seabird just barely visible a few feet away. It wasn't the same breed as the bigger ones from farther south. A leaner, harsher bird for a leaner, harder climate.<p>

What had Felix seen in this place? The ship plowed unrelentingly north, straight into the frozen heart of hell. Why had he stayed in this biting, fierce cold for three long years, without contact of any kind? Isaac shifted on the rail, bracing himself against the plunging nose of the vessel.

If only he'd known how they all had ached for his presence, those first wet and muddy days when they tried to dig their lives out from under the water. Those first few weeks had seemed like a dream. Their stained and sunken and haunted faces had floated past each other, surrounded by the wreckage of Vale and the wreckage of their laughter. And Felix had never wandered in from the surrounding woods. He'd never heard his welcome cry, the tears and shouts of those who loved him dropping their work and running to see him. No matter how many times Isaac woke up, the shattered walls dripping with muddy water, the paths caked with ooze and blood greeted him all over again. His scraped fingers met his gaze every damned morning. Slowly the dream had become a nightmare from which there was no waking.

Then Felix emerged again into the world of living men, and Isaac wished he were still dreaming. At least there had been some comfort in mourning the honorable memories of the fallen. That was robbed from him when they came back to show him just how far they had fallen, indeed.

Felix tried. Isaac had to grant him that. He tried to live up to their expectations of them, but he didn't try hard enough for Isaac. Not hard enough for someone whose heart had been broken afresh every morning knowing his best friend would never again laugh or steal or run with him, ever. For two years.

Right when the pain had started to finally fade, after a year of something resembling peace, when Dora's eyes had lost their sunkenness and Jenna had remembered how to smile and Garet had regained a large measure of his cheerfulness and clumsy stupidity, Felix had crashed in on them again, the ill-omened comet coursing across their small and happy sky.

Isaac hated himself for thinking it, but sometimes he wished Felix had left well enough alone. Sometimes, in the small, bitter hours of the night, he wished Felix never would have come back. Maybe they would all have died when the world exploded or whatever it was the world was on the brink of doing. Maybe they would have died. But they would have been blissfully ignorant, and they were probably going to die anyway. Which was better?

He shoved himself off the rail, swallowing a knot in his throat, and walked back to the wheelhouse.

Felix tried. He'd tried to salvage what was left of Isaac's very best friend from the slime and darkness of Prox, tried twice and failed utterly. He'd ranted and raved and threatened and sulked and wept, and Isaac couldn't find much pity left in his heart. He'd dragged Mia – unknowingly, to be sure - in his wake, and now she also circled the drain.

And now they were sailing, sailing relentlessly north. North, north, always north - and north to what? A decision none of them save Felix and Piers wanted to make, a burden forced upon them by someone Isaac couldn't immediately identify.

All he'd wanted was for Felix to explain himself. Felix knew so much more than he did about the world. Felix had seen deeper into life from the very beginning, had swum in darker and stronger currents. He would know, Isaac had thought. He would straighten the picture frame so Isaac, standing back, could look and perceive how it all had secretly made sense all along.

Nothing. He'd gotten nothing.

Isaac stared at the wheel, gripping the spokes. He wanted to just throw the tiller hard over, rip the ship out of the groove of destiny and sail the damned thing straight off Gaia Falls. See what the gods had to say about that. Were they in control of their own lives or not?

While he wondered, he relaxed his fingers, achingly aware of the new distance covered with each second that ticked by. Sand drained mercilessly from the glass in his mind's eye. Isaac could not see the future any longer, or see even one day ahead, for that matter. Death hovered so close, and safety... well, who could say when it would finally come?

* * *

><p>Golden Sun is the property of Camelot and Nintendo. R and R please!<p> 


	20. Kalt

Catharsis

Kalt

_What kind of fool would think himself ready to sail into a world he knew nothing about?  
>- Madran villager<em>

_We would never do anything as terrible as breaking our word... as you have done so casually.  
>- Karst<em>

_You know well that I hope to gain nothing more than the truth, Conservato.  
>- Hydros<em>

Felix blinked. Peaceful light streamed across the ceiling, of that curiously warm and lazy quality that marks the late morning. He raised one arm, wrinkled sheets sliding off in the process, and slapped himself in the eyes, kneading sleep out of the abused flesh. Might as well get up.

"Augh!" His first attempt revealed a terrible ache in his spine. And shoulders. And ribs. And just… ow. Felix rolled onto his side, taking the weight of his back off his ponytail. The braid had been hardened by saltwater and dust. He reached back over his shoulder and gripped the tail of it. Pulling the whole stiff mess out to where he could see, he slowly, painfully picked the mud-caked ends of ribbon out of it and pried at the knot. This particular bit of fabric had been stuck in there for about two or three hundred miles, and the knot showed every foot of it. His fingernails began to hurt, but he kept at it, eventually working the thing loose enough to pull off and toss away. Felix rolled onto his elbow, ruffling his hard, rough strings of hair. After a while, he managed to fluff it out into a dense, bristly cloud and flopped back down on his back.

Felix felt as if he'd been beaten to death and then accidentally revived, but at least he was alive. It seemed… it seemed like a good thing to be alive all of a sudden. Not so bad, no. Not nearly as bad as he'd thought before.

Again he rolled up over his legs, scraping the sheets off and swinging his feet down to the floor. He felt the air drawing through his lungs, his heart beating dully under his chest, and suddenly had to suppress a chuckle. Everything, for the five minutes he had in this room, was just fine. Everything, even though it was so utterly broken, seemed like it would work out all right.

Felix stood up and stretched, jerking as the sore spots in his back made themselves known. Laughter bubbled to his lips as the twinges raced through him, a laughter that had never in his life been so free or easy. Filthy from head to toe, he'd never felt so clean.

He poked his head out the doorway of Mia's room. A quick check of the halls revealed no movement, though odd sounds coming from above.

Ducking his head through the doorway, he climbed into the main cabin and nodded at Piers, sitting in a chair with a huge parchment spread open in his lap. Piers looked up at him with eyes narrowed in amazement, a smile semi-forming on his lips.

"You're unusually cheery today," he half-stated, half-asked. Felix realized he'd been whistling softly under his breath and stopped.

"Yeah, I, um, haven't slept in a while," Felix said. "What's going on?"

Piers rolled his eyes and gestured upwards, continuing to stare at him.

"Bathtime, apparently. Mia couldn't stand the dirt anymore. She's been washing clothes for the whole morning."

Felix grinned.

"Now that I think about it, you're looking awfully fresh today."

"And _you…_" Piers said slowly, putting the map to one side, "are seriously starting to unnerve me. What on earth happened yesterday?"

"Nothing," Felix said. "Sometimes it's just a good day. Has that never happened to you?"

"I _guess_," Piers said. "Also your hair is crazy."

Felix jolted up at that, embarrassed.

"I could use a wash myself," he said.

"Well, head on up," Piers said, settling back down into his chair. "Wait!"

Felix paused by the door.

"Um, the girls are out there now," Piers said uncomfortably. "Just, uh, just give them a second."

Felix nodded slowly.

"Right. Good idea."

Piers kept staring at the side of Felix's head when he thought Felix wasn't looking. Felix looked somewhere else studiously.

"Felix," Piers said. He waited until Felix met his eyes. "Tell me what happened."

Felix looked at him and considered. It had become so difficult to force the truth up through the layers of silence and discretion. But this time, for the sake of Piers...

"I broke it in half," Felix said. "It is gone forever now."

"What does that mean?" Piers asked. "What have you done?"

It meant he had lost the way. It meant he had dealt a crippling blow to the surest plan he had, for the sake of the faith and hope which might be imaginary but in which Mia believed. He had blown out his only light on the off chance that some whispers could only be heard in the dark.

"I don't know," Felix admitted. "I don't know anymore."

Piers nodded slowly.

"You seem happy, nonetheless," he said. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

Felix smiled, grateful for the affection. At the same time something plunged in his gut: the awareness of how much Piers did not know, could never know. The miles of distance that Felix, retreating into his own interior, had put between them. That distance might now be so great that it could not be retraced to the surface again.

"I'm happy it's gone," Piers said. "I never trusted it from the first."

"I know you didn't," Felix said. "And I...I think I should have listened to you. I'm sorry."

"You must have had your reasons," Piers said, "though I don't know what they were."

Fear. Fear and desire. How much surged unwanted in the depths of man, beneath conscious thought.

"I can't talk about that now, Piers," Felix said, shaking his head.

Piers nodded, looking briefly at something that only he could see.

"I'm glad it's gone too," Felix said. Piers smiled.

Felix felt a surge of gratitude again, for what friends he had. Fractured as they were, damaged by the stresses he'd put upon them and stretched to the limits of their faith, he needed every single one and he counted himself lucky to have what little he could have. The truth was-

Up on deck, someone screamed. The cabin tilted sideways. Felix crashed through the door to the outside without a second's thought.

As his body moved under the arch of the door, he felt it hit him. A tidal wave of fatigue swept over his senses and numbed his movement. Felix's boots slipped out from under him on a thin patch of ice and his hip slammed into the railing. His lungs filled with the salt taste of the air. Hanging from the rail with one hand, he fought the overwhelming urge to just fall down. He kept a tight, practiced grip on his consciousness, focusing on breathing.

_Got to get up. Got to get up. Getupgetupgetup_

He got up. A monstrous red turtle dragon reared its long, serpentine neck across the bow, trying to reach his family. Without really seeing Felix took in a wooden tub and the wisps of steam rising from it, clothes and sheets hanging around it as a shield. His feet felt slow and unwieldy beneath him, though he was running full speed. The monster roared, sending rumbling vibrations through his ribs and lungs. He sucked in air and let an answering cry build within him, feeling energy surging up through his feet.

A lightning snap sent its fangs flying down toward him. He flung himself to the side, sliding crazily along the ice-whitened deck. Spume flew up past him as he slammed his palms into the rail, shoving himself back out into the middle. As he slid more than ran, he snapped his wrist upward. The deck distorted with a strained groan and the turtle dragon was heaved sideways, off balance. Felix was out of time and options. He slammed into its side at full speed. Its skin was rough and still wet from the sea, but warm. He smashed the deck upward underneath it again, pushing himself away as a flipper came down where his head had been. Felix panted, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He couldn't get air. He had to save his family. This thing wouldn't go back in the sea. Flick. Slam. It kept bouncing toward the rail, forced to the edge by his last reserves of Psynergy. Felix kept his eyes on its head, waiting for the next strike. He paused for a split second to catch his breath. From the corner of his vision he saw the tip of its tail come flying toward him and he knew – damn! - it was over.

The tail exploded into his head, snapping it back. He felt his feet leave the deck and the sky tilted insanely above him.

Felix thought about the clouds whipping past him as he dropped into another ocean, many, many lifetimes ago. He saw them sometimes in his dreams, the huge, puffy woolen balls hanging miles above the sparkling blue water of Idejima. They cast dark shadows on the seas far below them. Just above them, a tiny, dark dot, its clothes whipping back and forth in the wind it generated.

Each line in the brown masonry below his stomach ripped past at terrifying speeds. Here a window – gone. A landing – gone. Stairs – gone. Sheba plunged into the blinding white field of a cloud side and vanished.

Felix hit it a few seconds later. Everything became instantly grey and wet and cold. He breathed in a swamp through his nose, and his stale breath was torn from his lips and left far behind.

He always wondered why he'd done that. If he lived he always would wonder why he'd done that. So many things in life just happened to you before you really had a chance to think about them. That was why Felix had stopped believing in heroes. The only choices people really made were bad ones. No one could take credit for good deeds.

He arced back, and back, until the horizon appeared upside down before his eyes. His ears were filled with a screaming fuzzy noise. Then he hit the water, the ice-cold, black water. It sucked the breath from his lungs in a shocked cloud of bubbles.

Felix saw his life drain to the surface in those bubbles. Beneath him, an infinity of black liquid and the promise of eternal rest. He blinked slowly, too tired to swim. His hair floated in a dark cloud around the corners of his eyes. Cold stabbed between his joints and pores, streaking inward toward his heart.

Maybe there'd be another Idejima. Maybe the gods would give him one more miracle.

* * *

><p>Mia sunk her fingers into the rail, her robe loosely belted around her. After the first scream had passed her lips, she'd been anxiously silent.<p>

Piers had hit the water in a clean dive from the doorway. He had not yet reappeared. The seconds ticked by and she strained every sense for a hint of life. This water, like the sea not far from Imil, could kill in minutes. It was too cold and too dark for a body to warm. Its fingers crept in and silently stifled.

The waves inched by. Spit them back out! she cried in agony, somewhere deep within the still shrine of her heart. Give them both back to me!

Give me Felix back.

Piers' head broke the surface, a black dot bobbing behind them. She opened her mouth to speak but Garet had already shouted and pointed, and Isaac heaved the tiller hard over. As they swung about she saw Felix cradled limply in Piers' arms, his hair flowing with the ripples just under the water's surface.

Sheba ran up and handed Garet something, and they engaged in a brief, intense discussion. Garet turned and ran back to the railing, his fist loosely closed.

"Piers!" he shouted, holding it out. "I'm going to toss you the hover gem!" Piers looked up and nodded. Mia kept her eyes glued to Felix. Please be alive. Oh sweet Mercury, please be alive. Breathe, Felix, breathe…

The purple gem flashed through the air toward Piers. His hand left Felix's shoulder for a second to catch it, and the two disappeared beneath the water again. The ship plowed onward, just to the right of the spot. Suddenly Piers jumped free of the water, Felix in his arms, a glowing violet disk supporting his dripping feet. He rose up slowly as Isaac threw the ship over again. The ship's bobbing nose moved slowly under the hovering pair. As they cleared the railing, the violet disk disappeared and Piers' boots dropped straight down, disappearing into the forest of sheets and clothing that Mia had made earlier. As she ran, she heard them splash into the tub, and water ran in filmy sheets out from under the fabric shield.

Oh, please, let him be alive…

Felix's eyes cracked open to view the same ceiling. Not quite the same view, though, for Mia's head was in the way. She had plastered a thin business veneer over an abyss of panic, and though he could see the façade he could also see what lay beneath it.

"What hurts?" she said shortly.

"Everything," Felix said, with the air of one coming to a realization. Wow, everything really did hurt.

Somehow, once again, he was not dead. Maybe there really were gods after all. Hah.

"Doesn't look like you've broken anything," Mia said. "Somehow."

He wasn't listening. If that was the case, the universe was even more screwed up than he'd previously been led to believe.

"I'm going to heal you up just a bit, to be safe," Mia said, turning her back to mess with something.

"Sometimes I think the gods must be crazy," he said to the sky.

"Why is that?" Mia said over her shoulder.

"Look at us," he said, knowing he should shut up but unable to stop the smooth flow of words. "I'm …me, Piers lost his mother, Sheba's just a little girl, Ivan's almost broken. Kraden's an old man."

Mia straightened up.

"Who chose _us_?", Felix said. "Who chose me?", he added as an afterthought, instantly regretting it.

"No one _chose_ you, Felix," she said. "You're just stuck with it, and you've got to do the best you can. For what it's worth..." she paused, and continued quietly. "...For what it's worth, I trust you."

"Haven't you …told me that before?" he said.

"Maybe I have, Felix. Maybe I told you that, but this time I really mean it. I trust you." She took a breath. "I really think you have everything you need to get us all safely through this."

Felix believed her. A ray of comforting truth flooded the interior chamber of his soul, and he knew peace. Then he remembered he was in a bed, a slowly dying, wounded animal. And he laughed.

"The gods certainly could have sent you someone better," he said.

"You could be the best, Felix. If you wanted to."

That hurt. Really, he was right, and she knew it. And death could rob him of his chance to prove himself wrong at any second. He made a small, quiet resolution to be a better person.

"Mia, look at me. I almost died a minute ago."

She refused to see the joke in the situation, shaking her head resolutely.

"No bed can keep you down for long, Felix."

What? Her faith was touching, but alarmingly, stupidly naïve. He could be killed with the simple flick of a wrist, just like any of them.

"Mia, I might die at any second-"

Then she was with him, kneeling by the bedside, her face pressed into his chest.

"You won't die, Felix," she said. "You can't die." Her voice rumbled through his ribs and his heart. "You want to do so much good. It… it wouldn't be fair." Her hand flexed slowly, seizing and releasing a wad of sheets and his shirt.

Against such simple arguments, he had to be silent. Felix was powerless against the way the world ought to be. He felt a creeping worry invade him. This woman was too damn quick. She acted as if she knew the whole truth.

"You got rid of the sword again," she said.

Felix heaved a breath. He had fought so hard to keep that a secret, and suddenly it didn't seem to matter anymore.

"Yes," he said.

"Will it come back?" Mia asked, unable to hide the tiny tremor in her voice.

"I don't think so," Felix said. "I broke it in half."

"Even if it does come back," she said, "… I'm still proud of you, Felix. You're really trying."

He didn't know what to do with so much kindness. Felix wisely kept a lid on his thoughts, though he allowed a pleasant warmth to spread from his chest down to his toes. However, a faint but definite irritation fought it for dominance. Cybele damn it all, how did she _know_? How did she see through every excuse he tried to put up?

"I'm gonna kill Piers," she mumbled dreamily. "So worried about bathwater on his nice clean floors."

"A clean house is worth almost dying for," Felix quipped. He had the strangest feeling that he was as light as a feather. Nothing particularly mattered. Everything could be funny.

"I knew you could do it," she said, shifting up to look into his eyes, with a gaze so clear and direct he had to glance away. "I knew you could, Felix. And… Felix…"

He looked back when she fell silent, and met her eyes again. They had shifted to a softer, quieter tone.

"I'm sorry that I doubted you."

"I forgive you," Felix said, quietly finding this hilarious. "I doubt myself constantly."

She pulled back from him, eyes narrowing. They were such a gorgeous blue… blue like the ocean. Her hair matched them perfectly.

"Are you okay, Felix?"

She was farther and farther away, falling into a tiny dot.

"Felix?"

Felix wandered far in strange lands.

* * *

><p>Piers stood at the point where the swelling curves of the ship's sides smashed into each other. He rocked on the balls of his feet, wishing he could get just a little closer to the smudge on the horizon.<p>

Mia walked up next to him. He could feel her unique presence without looking, small and worried and strong.

"How is he?" he said.

"Gone," she said. "He's completely unconscious."

Piers did not betray any of the reactions that had flooded his mind with that single word, gone.

"But alive, right?" he said carefully.

"Yes, he's still breathing," Mia responded gently. "Thank the gods."

Piers let out a breath of quiet relief. He didn't know what he'd do without the far younger, far more serious man around to constantly irritate. Isaac would simply not be the same. ...Ah, hell. He choked back the sarcasm, and something else in his throat. Felix had weighed nothing… nothing at all in his arms. A wet black feather.

"Kalt," he muttered.

"What was that, Piers?" Mia asked, perking up.

"Kalt," he tried again, clearing his throat. "The island's over the horizon right there. A few hours and we'll make shore." He pointed to the mass – a cloud attached to the horizon – as Mia shaded her eyes and stepped up to the rail beside him.

Piers adjusted the fluffy mass of the scarf tucked inside his greatcoat's collar. This was no climate for lazy Eastern Sea sailors. He felt his senses coming alive under the rough massage of the north wind. He needed to be sharper, calmer, quicker; the wind and the waves told him that much. Especially with Felix under decks.

Next to him Mia pulled her own white furs closer around her unconsciously. Something about that wind…something about the way it found cracks in the armor of warmth was fiercely, malevolently intelligent, and Piers didn't trust it. It spoke volumes of the kind of people they were going to visit, the land they would set foot on eventually. Prox was an ink dot on his maps that lay beyond the carefully shaded edges of known territory. It had faded into blank, brown paper. Piers knew just as much as the maps did of what lay ahead. He shifted slightly and frowned. Felix had not spoken of Prox very much, and what he had said did not soothe anyone's fears. Piers was willing to make some small concessions to the Proxians to account for Felix's prejudices, but still, as the captain of his ship he was on his guard.

Perhaps Mia caught a hint of his hard unease, for she spoke up.

"Piers… this island we're going to… it's safe, right?"

"Felix said Kalt was a peaceful place, settled only by a few hermits. He would have indicated if there were danger. We'll be cautious just in case, but I think we'll be fine," Piers said.

There was silence for a second. Piers thoughtfully toed the deck with one foot. Even though he loved this old hag more than his own bones, it would be good to rest on solid ground for just a bit. There was a storm coming, he knew. The Mars Lighthouse, for better or worse, represented the end of many things. The ship creaked in response, and he smiled slightly.

"Piers…" Mia said softly. He chanced a glance, and saw her staring at her feet. There was something tired and sad in that tone that put him fully into the moment.

"Yes?"

"…You…you lied to me, didn't you. About Felix. He... he doesn't really feel that way about me, does he."

Piers took a deep breath through his nostrils. When Mia remained silent, he let it out again in a low, mournful sigh.

"I didn't _lie_…exactly… I just…" He realized how miserably pathetic his excuses sounded. "Exaggerated a bit."

"Why?" she finally asked, very quietly.

His reasons had seemed so good at the time. By all the gods, that seemed an age ago.

Why had he done it? Piers chewed his lower lip as he thought. It was difficult to explain the whimsical love of practical jokes that had finally pushed his hand to the deed. Also difficult to explain that Piers had sincerely not expected everything to unravel so tragically. But he, the Lemurian captain, should have known. He with his extra decades of experience. Felix was heavier than a lump of iron. Everything around him, no matter how innocently begun, inevitably descended into a tragedy.

"I…I want Felix to be happy so badly," he finally said, the picture of those haunted eyes before him. "He deserves it."

"So you used me…" Mia's voice tailed into speechlessness.

"You could make him happy," Piers said over her. "I shouldn't have manipulated you, Mia, but blast it all the two of you take everything so _seriously_!"

That defused her for some reason, at least temporarily. He watched the shifts going on behind her face as she sorted out his outburst.

"I was hoping you'd pull him up with you, not that you'd end up just as miserable as he is," Piers continued. Mia snorted.

"You underestimated Felix's ability to ruin everything," she said.

"He's a good man, Mia-"

"Oh, shut up, Piers! I'm sick of hearing that, and you know it!" Her lip was trembling as much as her voice.

"But he is," Piers said again. He was not sure he believed it.

"What if I don't believe you, Piers?" she said. "What if I don't believe what you say?"

"What has he done to you?" Piers said, turning to her.

Mia opened her lips, but nothing came out. She trembled on the verge of hot speech, but the fires were already cooling within her. She cast her glance away, gathering her dignity.

"None of your business," she snapped, but Piers had already seen all he needed to know. Felix had stolen her heart.

In that unguarded, powerful second, Piers felt that at last he'd gained a substantial glance into this young woman's soul. He swam through his understanding, wondering at what he saw and felt. What a fool he had been. He thought he'd known pity for her before, but that dry academic idea was nothing. Nothing, compared to this torrent of comprehension. Poor Mia. Now he knew the enormity of the crime.

He recoiled with embarrassment at her predicament and his responsibility. "I'm sorry" didn't seem to cut it. Especially because Piers resolved to continue staunchly defending his friend. Felix didn't have many of those left.

"Have you ever actually seen him do anything evil, Mia?" Piers asked, caught by a sudden impulse.

"I…n… No." She shook her head, aware of the depth of that admission. Point for Piers.

"In all the time I've traveled with him, I have never seen him do anything evil," Piers said. "But more than that, Mia." Her oh, so blue eyes met his. "He has done countless good deeds, some of which forced him to go miles out of his way. That's the kind of man he is, Mia. He can't say no to anyone who needs his help. We hemorrhaged supplies and food and money on the way to Contigo. Every big-eyed orphan child and hunched-up widow from here to Tundaria."

Was that the faint outline of a smile he caught? Encouraged, he pressed on.

"I have known Felix for the better part of a year; please allow my judgment of his character to prevail over your opinion of a few weeks."

Mia nodded, and her smile disappeared.

"That sounds lovely, Piers. Now let me ask you a question: Have you ever known Felix to say something, and then not do it?"

Oh damn. He instantly saw where this was leading. How had she gotten so good at logic? His initial impression of an empty-headed healer had been irretrievably smashed. Arguing with Felix, no doubt.

"I, uh… No," he was forced to admit, still stinging with the pain of that return blow. He had to admire that.

"What he's taking us to do in Prox may well make up for all those years of saving baby birds," Mia said gently.

Piers smoothed his collar, ran a hand down the fastenings of his coat, pulled his spread fingers through his hair. She was right, oh, so damnably right! How could he bear to continue on this obvious fool's quest? But, a sterner voice asked, how could he live with himself if he did not? Now, at the crux of it all, he didn't want to have to make the decision. Piers flexed his hands on the railing, thinking. The fingers he tensed were those of a Lemurian…lazier than a cat in a sunbeam. The torrid heat of the Eastern Sea quickly taught one the art of least resistance. Backing Felix now would be the hardest of paths.

But Piers' fingers were cut and hardened, filled with pitch and splinters. Piers had feared the life he had crashed into. Standing in the shadow of a palm one dark, balmy night, as the flame-flickered face of the Gabomba stared maliciously back at him, he had feared, deeply and greatly. But he had lived the hard life since then. He'd loved it and he had proven himself worthy of it, and those fears were behind him now. The seaman in him stood him well. He had lived through storms worse than the passions of a lazy prince. This too would pass. He gritted his teeth.

"No." The single syllable rocked in his ears like the wake of an explosion. He was mightily glad he'd said it.

"What?"

"That won't happen, Mia. Felix won't do that."

"How can you be so sure?" Mia asked, with the closest thing to a scoff she could manage.

"Because I have faith," Piers said, as gently as she earlier. "I believe that Felix is a good man, and will not betray my trust in him. Faith is a quality we all need a little more of."

Mia smacked the rail with a palm.

"I'm so fed up with this!" she snapped, her voice rising. He looked at her. "I want to believe you so badly, but I just don't know anymore! You're a good person, Piers. Why do you still stick up for him?"

"Because he is my friend!" Piers replied. "He was my friend when no one else was and he is my friend still!"

She listened.

"He suffers deeply, Mia, from something I've never had the courage to ask him about," Piers said, and made sure every word had the deep ring of truth. "We made him the leader, and he took it seriously. He is under an incredible pressure to watch after all of us and to keep us alive. And I've never had the courage to change that."

Mia frowned. She turned to look out across the bows with him again. The smudge that was Kalt Island had silently grown.

"He takes it seriously," Piers said again.

"Do you think he's a good person, Piers?" she said again, turning to him. "Honestly. Be honest with me, please, Piers."

"I have to think so," he said. "I must think so, Mia. Characters must be judged by actions. He has proved his worth to me through a thousand small, careless words and deeds."

"Why must this be the way it is?" Mia asked. "Why?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Some lives are darker and harder and more dangerous than others. Some people have to climb farther and walk harder roads, and I don't know why that is. The gods must have their own reasons. Felix has had to bleed far more than I ever will. And... I don't know why."

Mia was silent.

"He will not betray the faith you put in him," Piers said. "I can't explain how I know that, but Mia, I know it. I just know it."

She leaned into his shoulder. Unsure how to respond, he tentatively put an arm around her.

"I'm so scared, Piers," she muttered. He heard tears bit back in her voice. "I'm afraid."

"Of what?" Piers asked, though he had a guess.

"I... just want him to be who he really is so badly," she whispered. "I don't understand why he won't do it. I don't understand why he won't give it up. I need him." She began to shake gently, and Piers squeezed her closer.

"He's dreaming," she whispered. "Somewh-where far away. And I'm so scared. I want him to come back."

"Felix will come back," Piers said, seeing something he could respond to. "He will not leave his work half-finished."

"He broke that awful sword," Mia whispered. "I'm so proud of him."

"Me too," Piers said.

They stood in close silence for another minute, Piers' confusion taking slow root. What exactly were they arguing about, then?

"D-do you think he's a good man?" Piers asked.

"I want to," Mia said. "But he hides himself from me in so many lies. Can't you feel them, Piers? He pretends to be something he's not, and he does it so well that I believe him sometimes. I want him to stop."

"So do I," he said. "But ...he will never be himself, I think, until this is all over."

The ship bucked forward, and Kalt bounced up and down in the distance, growing ever-so-slowly bigger.

Mia bit her lip slowly, reflecting on the painful, unmistakable wisdom of those words.

"I don't know what it is," Piers said. "I have failed him greatly, somehow." He hushed his inner worries and tried to remain comforting. "...He's worried, that's part of it. We're in for something soon, whatever it is."

"I can't take it anymore," she said. "I'm so scared."

_So am I, _Piers didn't dare say out loud. "We'll be all right," he said instead.

Piers was learning some things about how faith worked. Apparently, you didn't have to know everything was going to end well. And thus the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach didn't have to disappear.

He played with it, feeling faith dodge his questing fingers. Such an airy and insubstantial thing to support the lives of nine people and one ship.

"Who do you think you are, Piers?" she whispered. "You let him tear me apart."

Piers couldn't meet her eyes, tilted up toward his chin. Mia herself was lost somewhere in the storms on those twin blue oceans.

"I just wanted everyone to be happy," he said softly. "Like I am. But there is much, it seems, that I still do not know."

What else could he say? Who did he think he was?

"I'm sorry, Mia," he said. It was the most honest thing he'd said all day. "I am so, so sorry."

She looked back out to sea, not moving away from him, but not yet considering his apology.

"He's a jerk, Piers."

"Felix is quiet, reflective, and strong-willed," Piers said. "He can present himself as arrogant, but he is not a jerk, as you put it. I wish his behavior was a little more pleasant myself, but…Felix has always been the kind of person to feel the weight of his influence on the future. Perhaps I ought to be taking this all a little more seriously myself."

She bit her lip and stared at a point on the deck between their feet, considering.

"…Yeah," she murmured, the sound of her voice almost lost on the breeze. He felt some tension leave her shoulders.

"I don't think he's a jerk, Piers," she said, turning to look him in the eyes again.

"I'm glad," he said, and smiled a little sadly.

"I forgive you, Piers," she said. "On one condition."

"What is that?" he said.

"Help me get him back," she said. "Help me find the man you keep telling me he is. Then I will forgive you."

He held out his hand, and she took it.

"Deal," Piers said.

* * *

><p>If only all of life were as simple as alchemy, Kraden thought, blowing the final speck of dust off the last page. There was always a right answer, an equation that explained the situation you were facing. Sometimes those answers were tough to get, and science required the faith that the answers would always eventually appear; but that faith was rewarded so often it became fact for men like him.<p>

He finished his reading – a dated, but still informative treatise dealing with tidal influences on Psynergy used on the sea – and slotted it back into the shelf. Collapsing into his chair, he pushed his spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose and waved that one annoying strand of hair away. He ignored the twinge of pain from his hip. So long as he could still throw himself about like a much younger man, Kraden would continue to do so. Someone on this ship needed to convincingly pretend they knew all the answers. Felix was too honest. No one else even tried.

As long as there was work to do, Kraden could find happiness of a sort. As long as there was still something in the world he hadn't learned, he could keep his mind off his personal life. He'd learned that skill as a young scholar. Back then that personal life had been a perpetual shambles, a wind-blasted ruin of neglect and romantic ineptitude. Not much had changed, and now his own long-dead crises had been replaced by those of others. The kids he was tempted to think of as the children he'd never had a chance to raise… the kids needed his help.

He sighed, and tilted his head back to survey his kingdom. The world of books, through whose pages the breath of dead men ruffled, to whom he could converse in the living ink. They knew so much, on so many subjects. It almost fooled one into thinking they knew everything, even one as wise as he. But he was not quite fooled, for age and pain had indeed beaten wisdom into the alloy of his heart.

There was, for instance, no book to cure a broken heart. There were no books to ease the groaning joints of the world, no books to erase the lines in all the ancient faces. Kraden knew, because he'd once searched desperately through endless shelves for the very thing. If only he had it now to offer others… but his own fingers had never turned those pages.

Ah well. He sighed again, as befitted a man at his advanced age, and shoved himself up out of his chair. Or rather, he thought about doing so. His body cheekily disobeyed him. Kraden frowned, considering a reprimand, but in the end he smiled. He'd been half on its side all along. They stayed put in the cushions' recesses.

Kraden tensed his toes, gently kicking his chair back, and began to rock as he thought. He dreamed of Mia's face, so pretty and so young and so sad. No one so fresh and clean deserved to be so freighted with tears.

He was not much for religion, if the truth had to be told. As far as he was concerned, beings like the gods didn't particularly care if he thought they existed or not. Kraden chose to live a good life. At the least, he would benefit his fellow men, and if there was an afterlife then things would work out. No, the gods were not his concern.

Their servants, on the other hand, were often an immediate and severe obstruction to the work of science. Kraden grinned sleepily, remembering a certain Sanctum and the hands that had torn its seals, slipped into the womb of the world. Ah, what a glorious raid that had been. What a glorious day.

He was enough of a scientist to admit when he didn't know something. And he didn't know how to help Felix. Felix carried all the burdens of the world on his shoulders. The way his shoulders slumped and his back creased, you could almost see the big ball, tottering on the wind above him. For himself, Kraden had no regrets. No. He was old and death was near, and he had raided the Sanctum in the same spirit in which he'd lived his whole life. Knowledge was the unslakeable thirst of his existence. But perhaps… perhaps the children could have stayed home that day. How could he have known?

Kraden was an old man. He shifted uneasily in his seat, unable to properly enjoy its luxury. How could he have known, indeed? Had he been wrong to pry so, to poke his head where it was not invited? Difficult, when the sun was setting, to find out he'd been building the house wrong all along.

The kids were not old enough to remember the Righteous Thief, in the flame of his glory. Kraden had always prided himself on the resemblance, but maybe his thefts from nature were not so righteous after all.

The floorboards beneath his feet jerked as the ship slowed. Kraden caught at the arms of his chair and held tight until the motion subsided. Loud voices swelled, two decks above. When he determined that they were not panicked voices, and that he couldn't hear water gushing in, he released his breath and his grip.

From somewhere forward, the anchor chain spun loose from the hawse and rattled into the water with joyful liberation. Kraden pushed himself to his feet. He'd heard that sound in half a dozen ports, in a dozen ships in a single lifetime. Merely another adventure at hand.

"Yes, it looks quite cold," Piers was saying to Isaac as he poked his head through the doorway. Kraden shivered and drew his exposed neck down between his shoulders. "I don't want Felix in that, or any of the others for that matter."

"Can you handle it?" Isaac asked, fingering his scarf absently. Kraden smiled at that. Some things never changed.

In answer Piers vaulted over the railing in a flapping blur of blue cloth.

"Phoo!" came his voice after the splash. "Hoo hoo hoo. Yes, I can stand it – for a while." Kraden caught the faintest hint of chattering teeth, and the others must have heard as well. Garet cracked his knuckles and looked to Isaac.

"We'll hand 'em down, same as last time. Ready?"

Isaac nodded. Mia turned from the rail, pulling Sheba's hand after her, and Jenna came close as well.

One by one they swung down onto the salt-crusted rungs of the ladder, with varying levels of grace. Kraden's was worse than most, but he got himself properly aligned with a minimum of assistance from Garet and began the descent slowly. Brine crystals crunched under his boots with each step down, and his hard breathing fogged up the space between his nose and the ship's side. He narrowed his focus to the burning cold rungs under his bare fingers, and before he knew it he felt Piers' hands slip under his arms. The sailor, holding him just above the water, marched stiffly to the shore a few feet away and set him down, wading back in for the next load. Kraden blew into his aching, stiff knuckles and shuffled his feet as he watched the crew's progress, wishing for the n-th time he were thirty years younger. Ah well.

One of age's prerogatives was forgiveness for an actively absent mind. He turned from the ship and looked inward, to blue and gray frost, the dark bundles of fir trees, and a thin thread of smoke rising into the graying sky. At least they would find somewhere warm. His fingertips and feet were quite happy about that.

"How's it look, Kraden?" Sheba said, her small feet crunching through the top layer of ice.

"This place seems …suitable," he commented absently, his eyes teasing out the secrets at the foot of these trees. He smashed at the ice beneath his foot and shifted aside a thin layer of powder and broken shards with his toe, surprised when he hit something hard as rock only a little ways down. So permafrost could form this far south! It was cold, certainly, but he hadn't realized just how cold. Thin sheaths of ice had begun crawling up the trunks of the nearest firs. The baleful effect of the Mercury and Jupiter lighthouses, no doubt. He was vaguely surprised the Venus lighthouse hadn't exerted more of an influence on the ongoing climate changes. But then again, earth wasn't warm or cold, it was neutral. The ground balanced out to an even temperature far enough down. Hm. Not many studies had been done on elemental balance between the forces of Alchemy. Most written work from before the great collapse was irretrievably lost. Kraden had pored through the scraps at Tolbi's great library, and he had seen little. For himself he suspected that the weight of two lighthouses pushing down on Venus was a heavy load. Mars needed to be lit, and soon. He picked some of the needles from a tree a few steps away and rubbed them between his gloved fingers, thinking.

"Brritscold," Jenna said breathlessly, joining them with her arms wrapped around her slight frame. "Itssocold."

It was quite cold, yes, cold but not wet, though, hm, that was interesting. Ah! Of course! That was where Venus came in. Mud only appeared when Mercury influenced Venus… the earth was naturally dry. So there would be dry cold on land, since the confluence of Mercury and Jupiter was a cold-leaning element.

He was bumped in the small of the back by Mia. Her hair, escaping from a thick furry hood, poofed into his face as he turned. Quickly, he reached to relieve her at one corner of a rude stretcher on which Felix lay still, buried under a small mountain of cloth. Thoughts of permafrost driven fully from his mind, Kraden and the group set off into the forest, leaving the ship to rock on the beach.

* * *

><p>Garet thought about nothing. His mind circled around it, toyed with it, swam in it. His feet numbly punched into the ground, in perfect, pounding rhythm: left, right, left, right. The thin layer of ice over powder crunched in with each step. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.<p>

He felt vaguely aware of the cold, biting at his arms and legs, spreading like a sunburn across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He didn't really have any thick clothes, had never really needed them. Isaac and Ivan often teased him about it.

Now the traces of cold spread through him from the inside. His eyes flicked to Felix, his face still and drawn, his hair in a ragged, dark pile vanishing into the bundle they'd made of him.

Garet was rarely afraid of anything. He knew that if he somehow managed to miss a hit, one of his friends would be just behind to clean up his mess. They always were. They always would be. Garet was not afraid of water. He just didn't like it.

They threaded through the cave in single file. Good things usually came in caves, and it was fun to go exploring. Still, the tight passageway was starting to grow hot and close, and Garet had a rock in his boot. His foot was burning. He smelled damp and felt it on the walls squashing him, and that didn't make anything any better. Isaac disappeared around a corner up ahead.

"If we want to catch up to Felix," he'd said, stirring the fire a few nights ago, "We've got to be better equipped." They'd had a nasty encounter with some lizard things earlier. Garet absently poked at a long scratch on his arm.

"So what do you suggest?" Ivan asked, his eyes glowing in the firelight.

"Let's take the time to explore a little. I've heard rumors about the caves. We won't be sorry if we find some better equipment or even more money."

A few spelunking expeditions later, Garet paused and knelt down. This blasted pebble was coming out right now. He yanked the boot off as darkness gathered around him. Ready fingers seized the offending stone and flung it backwards the way they'd come with a satisfying _ping_. He stood up, jerking his boot back into place, and wiggled his toes. Ahh. Sweet relief.

Mia and Ivan had somehow …sort of… disappeared. Garet took a few long strides, squeezing his bulky frame sideways to fit through the crack. No matter. He'd soon catch up. Twisting, he popped through into a pitch-black area, which the wind on his neck told him was much more open. Better and better. The smell and feel of water was stronger here. The sound and sight of his companions was not.

"Isaac?" he said tentatively. Louder. "Isaac?"

He kept moving forward, faster. Then he took one last step, a step that never found solid ground.

"Wh-whhaaaaaaa!" Air whistled around him as he plummeted, his heart racing. He couldn't see. He couldn't see anything. What was –

Water. Water flooded his senses and his ears. He slowly flipped upright and struck out for the surface. His grasping fingers couldn't seem to find it… there! He burst out, gasping, and took a deep breath.

"ISAAC!"

The water rolled over his head again. Garet couldn't get an idea of which way was up. His ears were screaming at him that this wasn't it, but he couldn't see a thing. There was nothing to grip, and suddenly his legs tingled with the terrifying sensation of depth beneath him. How far down was the bottom? Bubbles escaped from the corners of his mouth. He was powerless to stop them.

The flame within his soul flickered, quivered. Damp seeped around the joints in the vault of his heart. His heart thumped and he tried to steady himself, ceasing to swim in the process. He tried to make images from his life flood his memory. Wasn't that how this was supposed to work? But nothing came. He saw nothing, he didn't leave his position in the dark, cold water. His senses did not cease to broadcast to him his peril. And Garet realized with a lonely and cold understanding that he was going to die very soon.

Then his world exploded in a cloud of bubbles and light, and Garet's head broke the surface and he sucked in a moldy, cave-flavored breath of the best air he'd ever tasted. Isaac was in the water with him and the end of a rope splashed down near them, a rope Ivan was at the other side of on the high-up ledge he'd tumbled from.

"You alright?" Isaac asked quietly, treading water, exactly as if the two of them had gone for a pleasure swim just for the fun of it. Grinning from ear to ear, Garet nodded. It was hard to say much past the knot in his throat.

He smiled and blinked, seeing the blotchy tundra again. He knew after that not to be afraid of anything.

But it seemed like this was a different world, now that Felix was with them. A world where maybe old rules didn't mean much anymore.

A world that wasn't quite as much fun as it used to be. A world where someone really could die, without anything stepping in to save them at the last minute.

Garet took a lot of ribbing about his future position as Mayor of Vale. He did not consider himself fit to be a mayor of anything. Garet wanted to be a follower and a supporter, not a leader. His broad shoulders were built for balancing others on. With a streak of ironic vision that might have taken those who knew him by surprise, he also understood that Vale did not need a lot of mayoring. The two of them would probably be a good fit for each other. The sleepy town that didn't need its watch tower and the man who didn't know how to guard it properly.

The arrival of Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers, and Kraden, the refugees from the inevitable, had crashed through something in all their lives that they had not known was there. The stained glass before his eyes was shattered, and a cold breeze blew through the jagged teeth left in the frame. He was confronting realities that he'd never needed to think about before. The world, it seemed, was more than the next few miles of road and the latest meal.

"Look, Garet," Mia panted, jerking the litter onto a new course. "Little house up there." They were now aimed directly for the front door of a dark, low cottage.

Garet nodded and gripped his pole end tighter, feeling Felix's weight bob and shift with each misstep the four of them took. Isaac, at the front left, plodded steadily on, his legs the only part of him that moved. Piers, to Garet's immediate left at the back of the stretcher, was causing many of the problems. He looked like nothing more than a ship being smacked around by waves of land.

Garet took a quick breath of cold, crisp-smelling air. It would have been easier to just sling Felix over his back than fight his three friends with these stupid poles. He wasn't even heavy, but Garet's arms ached with the jerking movement. Good thing they were close.

He looked to the side when Piers caught his foot on something yet again.

"Just have to get my land legs," Piers panted out by way of apology. "All these centuries… and I still haven't figured that out."

The world, save for their noisy approach, was unnaturally silent and still. The snap frost had stilled the blood in everything, even the trees. Garet felt as if the birds and small animals had taken a short trip somewhere else and would be back soon. Nothing moved except for the clouds of fog around his cheeks and nostrils. Jenna tramped solemnly alongside him, Sheba's hand trailing in hers.

Felix had told him he didn't know what to do. And if Felix didn't know, no one knew. And now Felix lay on a stretcher, bouncing gently between the footsteps of four of them, living and breathing somewhere else.

Garet paused with his hand on the doorknob of the house, the others keeping Felix lightly balanced just behind him. Here went nothing. Something would change. Something would save them, just like all the times before.

* * *

><p>R+R please!<p> 


	21. Mercury

Catharsis  
>Mercury<p>

_I have failed in the one duty placed upon me...  
>- Mia<em>

_Mia's going to defend the honor of the Mercury Clan._  
><em>- Justin<em>

_I hear Fate mocking us.  
>- Elder<em>

The blue tiles shimmered under the light in Mia's hand as her feet broke through the thin puddles on them. She plashed near-silently to higher, drier ground at the end of the corridor.

The blue statues looked down on her as always, their facial expressions muted with dark, age, and distance. Her little light didn't illuminate much, and with a dim part of her mind she wished she'd packed something a little more powerful.

As always, the main shaft stretched away from her at a crazy angle, her neck cricking as she tilted her head back to look up into it.

She padded softly a little farther down the hallway and turned the corner, eyes seeking to pierce the dark.

A knife flashed out of the shadows and pierced her chest.

Mia flung her blanket away from her as she sat up, gasping for air. Her eyes fixed on the glowing embers of the fire, seeking in them reassurance that this, indeed, was real. This was real. The dark blue corridors slowly faded. When the heaving of her breast had stilled sufficiently she stood up and went to the window, staring out into the white flakes and the black night.

Another nightmare. They were coming more and more now. The lighthouse in her memories had ceased to be a place of comfort. Any why should it? She had failed to guard it.

Felix's convalescence was progressing slowly enough that there was doubt about the steady part. The snow built up higher and higher around the little house in Kalt as Mercury and Jupiter banked their fury.

Mia turned and walked over to the bedside by which she now spent all her time. Felix's chest rose and fell in tiny fractions, as it had in the days since they'd arrived.

She'd traveled along the pathways in Felix's body and mind again, and again, and again, endlessly rechecking every connection and avenue. The Psynergy flowed without obstruction. His flesh was whole and in better condition than it had been for a long time. She'd fed him soup that she and Jenna and Sheba had made, with an eye more toward nutrition than flavor. Good thing he hadn't woken up for that. But he hadn't woken up at all.

She sat in her chair, right by him, and continued to watch his face. There was a certain anger missing from before, a certain calm and stillness now that – thank the gods – the Thing was finally gone. It seemed indeed to be gone. She and Piers and Isaac had turned the ship inside out trying to see if it had reappeared anywhere, but it hadn't.

Mia ran a hand through her hair, brushing off the sweat still trapped in her hairline. She hated bad dreams. They had gradually stripped Imil and the lighthouse of all their comfort, all the protection that memory afforded from the present.

If only she could go back. If only the past could be entered again.

But no, she realized. Not only because she'd lived through things she wanted to keep, but because if she started over from the beginning, she'd just live until he betrayed her all over again.

And then she sat up, and stared through a spot on the wall above Felix's head.

Him. It was him. This was about Alex. All along.

She bit her lip and rubbed her hands. Damn it.

The white streets and the blue tiles hung in her memory. The color of his eyes and the sound his dreams made when he spoke them aloud and the way she'd started to gradually listen with care.

She sighed and sat back. It wasn't fair, carrying around all this anger. How had she never seen it for what it was before?

...If she tried to think differently, would the nightmares go away? Maybe, maybe not. It couldn't hurt to try.

Felix deserved to hear some of this, though it didn't explain all of the tension between them. She looked at him on the bed next to her and snorted. No time like the present.

"Hi Felix," she murmured.

He didn't move a fraction, and she continued to watch him breathe. She saw signs of what Piers had told her about everywhere on his face. Not just the scars from cuts and scratches. The deep lines of worry and thought.

"I hear you've been through a lot," she continued. "I've got a lot to tell you."

She scooted her chair a little closer and leaned down.

"Piers was right," she whispered. "You're so grouchy because you worry so much about all of us. I really appreciate it, Felix. Thank you."

Thank you, Felix. For keeping us all alive.

"I owe you an apology," she whispered. "See, I had this friend once. He was a great guy, a lot like you. He was so brilliant and handsome and daring. He took me to a very special place in Imil, to the Lighthouse. He was a student of mine, but we had grown up together and I was good friends with him."

She took a breath.

"He-he betrayed me," she said softly, "when I needed him the most. And he is still betraying me now. He has turned his back on everything I love. And – for a while – well, I thought that maybe, because you knew him and he worked with you, that you were a lot like him. And you seemed a lot like him at first."

Felix did not bat an eye.

"You were clever, and angry, and witty, just exactly the way he used to be. And he hurt me oh, so much, Felix. But I'm sorry. Because I was wrong about you. You're not like him at all. You can be, sometimes. But sometimes you can be so friendly and so gentle and kind."

She whipped a nervous glance at the door, just in case, but it was in the wee hours of the morning and there was the peculiar living quality about the silence that told her absolutely nothing was stirring.

"You see, Felix," she said, "I- I think I maybe love you, a little bit. You're very handsome and I can tell how much you care about all of us, even though you don't say anything. But Piers told me a few days ago about how you have so much on your mind. I don't know how you feel about me. I wish you weren't so busy all the time. I wish this horrible quest was over."

She looked him over one last time. Sleep was pulling her eyelids closed.

"I promise I'll be nicer to you from now on," she said. "I wish you would wake up."

* * *

><p>Isaac, nodding to Piers, hefted his end of the water barrel he'd just corked with a pained grunt. The pair wordlessly waddled across the beaten, muddied ground to the side of the ship, where they shifted it into a low raft. Isaac clambered into the raft, carefully securing the barrel with his body, and Piers shoved both of them aloft with a push of his palm. Isaac rolled the barrel before him onto the deck of the ship and tipped it upright with a crash. Brushing his palms against one another, he stepped back onto the raft and slowly descended to beach level. Feeling aches in every muscle, Isaac rejoined the sailor on firmer ground. He pinched his frost-burned earlobes, trying to restore circulation, and rewrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck. It was freezing out here.<p>

"That's the last of them," he said.

"Thank the gods," Piers remarked wearily, leaning his forearm on Isaac's shoulder. "I don't know how I would have refilled all these if I hadn't met all of you."

Isaac smirked and rolled his eyes. "You would have just died somewhere."

"Well, that's certainly one possibility," Piers said dubiously. White waves washed mutely around the nose of the ship.

"We would probably have died too," Isaac said, more soberly. He stooped to pick up a rock at his feet, pulling it free of the ice and pitching it into the waves.

"I'm sure you would have done just fine, Isaac," his new friend assured him.

"Well," Isaac sighed, "we're done that part. We should make it to Prox just fine."

Piers turned to him, a sober and surprised glint in his eye.

"You know something strange," he mused, "I never stopped to wonder what we'll do after that."

That observation broke open over Isaac like a summer storm. He stood with his mouth slightly open in surprise, wisps of fogged breath drifting loose while he tried to catch up with himself. Piers had spoken the truth. Their actions depended on the belief that they'd still have a ship, still see the sunrise, still breathe the cold northern air, still have to decide what to do with the rest of their lives. Isaac caught a glimpse of the world without the quest hanging over their heads for the first time in three years. The chains would be completely broken. He couldn't decide what unnerved him more, the alien character of that world or the very fact he found it so strange.

His toes were numb.

And they'd only filled enough caskets from the spring to get to Prox. He shifted his feet, trying not to think about it.

"Should we fill more?" Isaac asked.

"No," Piers ultimately said. "No, leave it be." They turned together and walked back up to the house.

* * *

><p>Mia sighed and flipped a strand of hair out of her face as she stood. The heat from the roaring, crackling fire was beginning to overwhelm her. She took one last look at Felix, still as inert as the bed he lay in, and stepped out of the room. The silent, ancient couple who normally lived here watched her leave, their eyes searching and mute. She'd had just about enough of them as well. Felix could wake up any minute he wanted.<p>

"How is he?" Jenna asked, as she asked every time Mia left the room where he stayed. Mia answered with an eloquent shrug and frown. Jenna's face fell in her wake, but there was nothing she could say. He just needed to wake up.

* * *

><p>Felix kicked at the leaves swirling around his feet, enjoying the early autumn wind playing around his neck and shoulders. Everyone had their favorite season. Fall was his. He loved everything about it: the crisp scent of leaves on the wind, the gathering chill, the haunting feeling of death that reminded him he was still alive. It was so beautiful and so fragile and flawed. The trees that lined the stony path he progressed along were aflame with crimson, pink, and gold.<p>

He passed people, working diligently on the construction of a small stone house, whose faces he thought he recognized, vaguely. A woman stood up, shouting something about finding a coin. Felix smiled. Good for her.

"Are you sure you're headed the right way?" the future mayor of Madra asked him. Wide awake and wise beyond his years, as always. Felix blinked and thought. Yes. He had to go the long way round to get out. He had to brave the pain and heat to get them all free of the desert. There wasn't any other way.

He started walking forward again.

"You could be so much more," his father said.

"I know," Felix whispered, no longer armed against that attack. "Why don't you help me?"

His father vanished, and he pressed on. The leaves danced and skittered along the ground.

Felix blinked and his eyes opened on a dark place, his lungs filled with panic. He had to find the sword. They were coming. He had to find it, he'd left it just around here somewhere. The image of the thing, dark and glittering, hung before his eyes. Papers and clothes flew, books fell and drawers slammed. They were coming. They were coming.

Felix straightened up. Now he remembered. It was gone.

They came through the door.

The leaves crunched. Felix looked down at his foot, planted in the debris on the path. He looked around, at the golden sunlight filtering through the warm red and orange leaves. The trees marched on for as far as he could see to either side, and the thin thread of the path snaked before him to the horizon.

Man, in the end, did not truly need to know. He could not know, in fact, never would know everything he asked after even if he lived a thousand lifetimes. So what man needed must be only to believe. Felix hadn't the faintest idea how belief worked or how he would know it if it hit him in the face.

He walked.

In Prox, naked lust for power and the blank face of death and the indifference of the truly cruel had left their scars on his mind. He could not say how deep they went and he was incapable of speaking their weight out loud. But he knew them by their names, even so.

Love gave most of itself when it believed even though all the evidence was against it. But surely love believed in something good, something it saw underneath the skin of unlovability. Love had eyes that did not see the skin and the words, but something else, that which its eyes alone knew.

Felix knew that those eyes within himself must be closed. He saw only with the sight of the mind, the eyes in his skull, and he saw only what others showed him to be seen. He lived in the world as it really was, the dark world of questions and faraway hopes and truths that ground against one another, and ground lives to dust between them. And yet, was that the world as it really was? Why, if there were nothing more, did the ache in his heart speak so insistently of an unknown better way?

Those eyes were closed within him. Therefore Felix did not really believe that they could be open in anyone else, even in the distant past when he had seen the evidence for himself in a family now destroyed.

Mia could not love him. He had nothing within himself which could be loved. He had shown her nothing which had the kind of nooks and crannies in which affection could begin to grow. Somehow, though, somewhere even within his desperate desire to be loved, a voice spoke of his right to be loved. He did not believe it and he forced it to stay nothing more than a whisper. But whispers carried.

He awoke with the light of a grey sun filling his eyes. The world around him was shrouded in mist. No sound or color reached him from beyond the small circle of grass beneath his body. He pulled himself up off the ground and brushed the moist dirt off his clothes.

He flapped his arms and shivered a bit as the damp chill hit him. Mist floated in the cracks between buildings, their ghostly silhouettes standing solid here and there in the shifting landscape.

Felix shrugged and started walking. Then he stopped. This place was familiar… very familiar.

He lifted a hand to touch the wall of the nearest structure, feeling its bones beneath his fingers. Drizzle drained gently off the thatched roof and onto his head. Brushing away a thin coating of droplets, he moved forward. The sight-destroying fog was a little eerie, but he didn't need his eyes to know exactly where he was in Vale. It had been forever, but everything came back to him seamlessly.

As he approached the last rise to his house, he caught faint voices and the smell of smoke. He walked faster, without thought of fear, curious to hear the conversation he only caught in undertone and see its speakers.

The door to his house opened to his gentle push, and he saw Saturos sitting by his fire.

"Welcome," he said. "Come, sit with me."

Felix stood on the threshold, drinking in the sight of a long-dead foster father. Saturos' face was as battered as he remembered, his eyes the same shifting red, his hair the same weird pale blue.

"Why?" he said.

"We have much to discuss," Saturos said, sounding surprised. "You know how much. The last stage of your journey is approaching, and we must make sure all is prepared."

There was a warm, friendly note in his voice that something in Felix had longed for. But there was a cruel leer he'd never really seen before, hard lines around the corners of his mouth he hadn't noticed in youth. Felix realized with an effort that he'd never heard that voice in life. He'd just wanted to.

"I will finish it, Saturos," Felix said. "I told Agatio and Karst that."  
>"Did they send those fools after all?" Saturos said, in a mocking tone Felix was much more familiar with.<p>

"Agatio wouldn't know what to do with something he couldn't bash over the head."

"Well, he did his best, but my head is pretty hard," Felix said. "We don't have much of a relationship."

"Ha-ha-ha!" Saturos cackled. Had he really sounded like that? His laughter was harsh and flat, devoid of real humor.

"It is much like the relationship I had with you," Felix said, wondering why he did it.

"What?" Saturos' expression shifted instantly. "What are you talking about? You were my student. I taught you everything I knew."  
>"You didn't know a lot," Felix said. "You knew only what Prox taught you."<p>

"Prox!" Saturos spat into the fire. "Prox didn't know what was good for it. Only I did. Menardi saw the same truth."

Felix narrowed his eyes. That wasn't a lie. Saturos really believed he knew something their home city didn't. How much did that mean? If Prox hadn't taught Saturos… Who was Puelle? He pushed it away.

"Still, I have little in common with either you or Prox," Felix said, speaking levelly.

"You have much more in common with me than you think, Felix," Saturos said in an ugly voice, standing up to his full height. In the fireplace, the fire surged and roared, sparks flying and snapping. He stepped over to Felix, towering above him. Fear shot up the back of Felix's throat and danced between his shoulder blades.

"I gave you a mission," he thundered. Felix watched from far below, seeing the same chin-first profile that he had as a small boy. "You must free Prox from her slavery to the earth, and allow her to regain her rightful position as the mistress of Weyard. I taught you everything. I loved you, in my own way. I poured myself into you. You were the son I never had."

Felix tried to still his involuntary twitch at that phrase. His whole being flooded with emotion, longing, hope, joy… He controlled it with an effort. It was too much, too close to the fulfillment of a lifelong fantasy to be real. He had been wondering…why this house? Why his house… his father's house. Now he thought he knew.

"Maybe," Felix said, struggling with the thought behind the words, "maybe you did love me, in your own way." He swallowed, once or twice, fighting it down. Gods, this hurt so much. "But maybe I just wanted you to…" he said, slowly, piecing it together as he went. "Wanted you to so badly… that I thought you really did."

"I did!" Saturos insisted.

"How will I ever know, though? You're dead." Felix realized he was sitting down at Saturos' feet. Why was that? He stood up, slowly, bringing himself level, face to face, with Saturos.

"I won't ever know what you really thought about me. You gave me many things," he said, "discipline and passion and desire. But you gave me many other things as well, things not as good. And I need to find for myself what needs to be desired and what needs to be disciplined."

"You'd better discipline your thoughts, Felix," Saturos said. The dying fire in the room beyond him crackled. Felix felt a small dream within him dying, and knew himself to be beyond it, free and clear. He sighed a little wistfully, for all that he still owed to that small boy and his fears.

"You picked too many damned fights, Saturos," Felix said, and slammed the door shut.

Love would not sustain him. He had no right to it. Hope had long deserted him and faith... well, he wanted it, if you could want something you didn't understand. But he didn't have any. Didn't seem like that would change soon. Felix only had duty left. And his duty he would do, whether the gods cared to intervene or no.

His eyes cracked open in a small room. He was lying on his side, roasting to death in a cocoon of blankets. He knew he was really awake because there was an awful taste in the back of his mouth. The room was wood, dark wood, and he'd been there before. The tension slowly evaporated from the back of his neck, and he breathed. They'd made it to Kalt. Good. He hadn't been out too long, hopefully.

It was dark, and bobbing shadows cast by the remains of a small fire shifted around the walls and ceiling. In a chair close to him, Mia slumbered, what was left of a meal on the floor beside her. He instinctively curled into the blankets, keeping wary eyes on her. Back to the land of the barely living. Back to plans and mistakes.

There was only one thing left. Only one way out.

Felix smiled a little, slipping out of his bed like a wraith. He had work to do. This world was less pleasant than the dream he'd left behind, but it was better in other ways. It felt good to push against the hard, unyielding rock of life and know you were alive.

A draft against his legs made him look down, and then flush with embarrassment. They'd taken off most of his clothes. Good thing Mia wasn't awake. Spotting a neat pile of folded garments behind Mia's chair, he moved past her, shaking them loose and ripping them on with near-silent, feverish haste. The open door called him, but he turned back.

He paused by Mia's chair and watched her sleep, breathing when she breathed. She was so good and so beautiful. Too good and beautiful for someone like him. She'd put up with so much from him, so much from the world, with patience he decided must be infinite. The corners of his mouth twitched upward and his eyes softened, tracing the curves in her face. The gentle, soft way her eyelashes fell against her cheeks. His pulse rising, he brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead with infinite gentleness, pausing again to see her new appearance. She stirred slightly, then settled back into slumber. The world let out its breath, and sound and light returned. Felix's breath escaped from between his teeth, but his heart didn't slow a fraction.

For Felix had decided on a course of action. He had resolved to do one particular thing with all the time and effort that was left to him in the world, with all the peculiar gifts he had been allowed to retain through a thousand brushes with death. He had resolved to do it, or die trying; and he was well aware how likely the unfinished attempt would be. He ran a hand through his hair.

This moment was precious, perfect, instant, and it would never come again. He knew he should move, be about his business, but his heart forbade giving his feet the order. He felt his heart ticking by the seconds, but somehow they didn't seem to really elapse.

Something was calling him to dedicate his life to a higher discipline. He felt the all-compelling urge to turn over a new leaf, in this place. Mia's breast rose and fell gently. Maybe he'd give her gods a try. Whatever she believed in was good enough for him.

Felix's gut clenched, and he bent over her, letting his lips just barely brush the skin above her eyes.

He needed that kiss, for luck. With that memory to rely on, all that was to come would be as nothing. He practically danced out of the room, not even feeling the ground.

He danced back in, backwards, his brow puckered in. That wouldn't work. The first thing Mia's waking eyes would see would be his empty bed. He needed a little more time. He approached her chair again, softly.

His head knew exactly what needed to be done. His heart, with its fingers in its mouth, instantly nodded its assent. Felix tried to shove down its eagerness, laughing in the pit of his gut with the butterflies that danced there.

He gently, gently slipped his arms under Mia, and lifted her from the chair into his chest. She didn't move or react, so he turned and passed through the doorway, depositing her in a good spot near the fire. He set her down as if she were a woman he'd fallen in love with, and ran outside into the cold, dark night.

* * *

><p>The dawn crept in between Mia's eyelids and pried them open. She blinked and it disappeared, slipping back to watch her wake. She stirred slowly, listening to the morning. Her father's voice and eyes faded from view.<p>

Mia shook her head, coming more fully awake. She had seen her father again. What did that mean? He walked restlessly in her memories, and she felt his unease.

_What are you trying to tell me?_

"As if they're really there at all," Isaac said somewhere near her. She sat up. He was hunched over near the fire, poking at it with a little stick or something.

"Well, you don't really ever know," the bundle of fur that was Kraden said, a distinct cautionary note in his voice. "That's what faith is all about." He turned and gave her a courteous nod, his glasses twinkling in the reflected light. "Good morning, Mia."

Isaac straightened up and twisted in his seat.

"Oh, hey Mia."

Isaac's eyes on her, for whatever reason, reminded her that her hair was a mess. As soon as he turned back to the logs, she hastily patted it straight, running her fingers through it.

Her mouth opened wide in a huge yawn, and she blinked, covering it with a hand.

"If you never know, then why bother believing?" Isaac snarled tiredly. "It won't change anything."

Isaac looked terrible. The size of the black marks under his eyes meant he hadn't gotten much sleep last night, if any. Poor guy. She tried to spin her mind up to speed in order to follow what they were talking about. Maybe that held a clue to his appearance.

"Maybe it doesn't change them, but it changes you," Kraden said. "You wouldn't be on this quest if you hadn't believed in them."

"If only," Isaac said. Kraden looked like he wanted to agree with that for a second, but for some reason he was playing devil's advocate here. She was more confused than ever.

"Let's say," Isaac said, "for the sake of argument, that I didn't believe in them. Maybe I just believed the Great Healer."

"Well," Kraden said, leaning forward and emphasizing his point with one finger, "_he _did. This quest wouldn't have happened without faith. Be quite sure of that."

"But does any of that faith mean anything in the end?" Isaac said. "We have no way of knowing."

"I guess we'll find out," Kraden said slowly.

"What are you talking about?" Mia interjected, sensing the first good opportunity. Kraden glanced at Isaac, who stared into the fire.

"Nothing important," Kraden said.

"The gods," Isaac corrected.

"Wh…what about them?" she asked, trying to plug this into what she had heard before.

"Where they are most of the time, what they are doing while we all risk death, that sort of thing," Isaac muttered, apparently hoping she wouldn't hear him.

"The gods are on your side, Isaac," she said forcefully.

"You believe in them, don't you," he said, turning to look at her.

"Yes," she said. Isaac looked down, nodding.

"What have they done for us, Mia?" he asked, pleading.

She stopped short at the demand for evidence. They'd… they'd… what had the gods done for them? What had the gods done for her? Not a whole lot, on the face of it. She'd served Mercury faithfully for all those years, alone, and nothing had come of it. The gods had deserted them. And…in her case, with just cause.

"I don't know," she said. She fought it. She fought the tidal wave of black thoughts, pushed it back and gained herself a breathing space by sheer force. The gods had not deserted them. The gods were good, and they would never desert their followers. They were just doing what they thought was right. This was the right thing to do. Good, that was established.

Why had the gods created this world at all?

"Why don't they just don't come down here and solve all this?" Isaac said. "I want to see them help us."

"I… I don't know, Isaac," she admitted. "But there's got to be a reason."

"Give her a chance, Isaac," Kraden said softly. "Let her think."

Still, her sympathies were all with Isaac.

Why had the gods created the world at all? Why had they bothered? They should have just left the darkness alone.

But here they were, drawing breath. That meant… maybe the gods wanted to see what they would do.

"They gave us air…and fire…and earth…and water," Mia said thoughtfully. "They gave us those. They gave us hope. They gave us faith." She looked at Isaac, her mind racing faster than it ever had before. Oh, she was so stupid.

Felix's eyes danced before hers.

"Oh, it's not fair," she said. "I'm so bad at talking like this. I don't know what I'm trying to say." This was a critical moment, she could feel it in the air. She pushed her palms against her temples and racked her brains, trying to glean something from the barren fields, something Isaac desperately needed.

She kept thinking about Felix, pursuing what inspiration had given her. The answer was with him somewhere. She knew it. She'd known it all along.

Why? Why were they all children abandoned at their moment of greatest need?

Felix had thrown away his cursed sword just four days ago. She saw it in her mind's eye. What… really _what_ had made him do that?

Hope. And faith. No matter how she tried to stretch her feeble brain, it just kept coming back to those two. She felt so useless, so limited.

"Hope…" she said feebly. "Hope and faith. Those are the gift of the gods. They are always with us, inside our hearts, trying to encourage us."

But why couldn't they just reach out and make everything better?

Because…because then Felix would never be himself again.

"Because Felix wouldn't have to fight to make it all better," she said out loud, thinking as she went.

"That's why," in response to Isaac's quizzical stare. "Because Felix is fighting so hard to prove to himself that the world is a good place. If they just came down and fixed everything, there'd be nothing for him to fight for." She bit her lip and slammed her fist against her drawn-up knee. "Argh! I don't know."

Kraden's seat creaked as he sat up.

"We're all so sad because our quest seems pointless. Maybe they want to give us a chance…to mean something. If the gods just solved everything for us, we would never know if we could have done it. Maybe they want to see us ...be heroes."

Isaac and Kraden stared at each other. Kraden started to laugh.

"I like her," he said.

Mia recoiled with embarrassment, confused by the way both of them were now staring at her. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm going to… I have to go." She beat a hasty retreat, thinking to check on Felix. But his bed was empty.

She wheeled back on Kraden and Isaac, still giving her back a weird look.  
>"Where's Felix?" she asked. She knew by their expressions that they had no idea. By the time they began to speak, she had shrugged her thick outer coat half-on and run out the door.<p>

Garet stood on the spit, a dark, spiky silhouette against the grey and white water. The dawn was still no more than a cold white light in the clouds.

She jogged up next to him, jiggling her other arm into its sleeve and shrinking as puffs of ice-cold air found their way in with her movements. She didn't see Felix anywhere. Her cold fingers curled tighter around her staff.

His hands were clasped behind his back.  
>"Kraden told me he'd show me the ocean once," he said out loud. "He was right, it is very beautiful. Beautiful, and dangerous... like life."<p>

She stared at him, surprised by his sudden attack of poetry, then recovered herself. It could wait for five minutes.

"Garet, have you seen Felix?"

He came slowly forth from his dark cave, and then looked quickly up and down the beach.

"Um, no, I-" He paused with his eyes on something behind her for a second, and then took off running. Her stumble sideways, dodging his charge, revealed to her Piers' ship. Anchor raised, it was in the middle of a slow turn out to sea.

Many things, in that split-second, flashed through her mind. The outline of something fantastic, incredible, utterly infuriating, danced half-formed in her imagination. Had he really gone as far as that? What... what did Felix see?

She'd always been faster than Garet, and she quickly gained on him even with her fur on. The ship, broadside on to the land, began moving away from her, generating a small curling wake. She ran harder than ever before in her life. The pumping of her arms and the wind shrugged her coat down her shoulders; she shifted the staff from hand to hand and let the coat fall to the beach behind. The chill bit through her thinner sleeves, but she ignored it. Damn. You. Felix. The ship was closer than before. She sucked in more air and kept running.

She came abreast with Garet, forcing his stocky frame to its last ounce of speed.

The ship was close, close, close, right there. Now or never, never ever ever. Their pounding feet hit the water, splash splash splash. She felt the water getting too deep, the bottom too uncertain, and leapt for it.

Her fingers slammed into the curling carvings at the base of the stern, and she gripped without thinking. She looked behind to see Garet floating in the water, his face beet-red. His jump had fallen short.

"Go, Mia!" he shouted raggedly. "I'll... get the others!" As she looked back to her own plight he turned back to shore.

She gripped more tightly, looking up for another hand-hold.  
>"Damn you, Felix," she whispered between laughing breaths, listening to the wake pick up volume and strength beneath her.<p>

There. She pulled with all the strength left in her tired, shaking arms, holding the staff against the side of the ship. She would know. She leaned over a slight projection, balancing her stomach on it. Turning her head sideways, she spotted another good handhold a little farther, and carefully reached out until she felt her hand grip it.

She couldn't believe she was doing this. Damn it all, Felix.

How could the gods be on their side if they were breaking their faith?

She slipped.

Her fingers popped loose of their hold, a little salt and grime flying with them. She felt the air give way beneath her.

But as she rolled over and faced the sea her mind was racing. She took a deep breath and streamlined her body, retaining her consciousness as she hit the water and it pounded the warmth from her. Mia oriented herself towards the surface, tiny bubbles escaping from her nostrils, and thought. She surged upward in a case of liquid, spilling across the deck behind Felix. He turned from the wheel.

"Mia?"

She tossed the wet, slick strands of hair from her eyes and rolled her shoulders, trying to release the tension she suddenly felt there.

She sucked in a breath, two, watching his features narrow as he saw her face.

"Aaaaa!" She swung the staff at the side of his head with all her shaking might, twisting her stomach to recover as he ducked. Felix took a slow step back, wary eyes watching the end of the stick. She smirked and forced water over the side. It slammed into the back of his head and his body, and sluiced off to the left. When she could see his eyes again, they were watching her.

She swung the staff again. He ducked. She raised it high in both hands, breathing hard. The end smacked a wet dent in the deck, right below where Felix's head had been.

"Fight me!" she screamed. "Draw your sword!"

He blew a wet smile at that, spray flying from his lips and dripping from his hair. Her heart almost stopped at that smile, and she paused.

"I have to fight you," she yelled, drowning out the roaring of the ocean and her anger. "I have to fight you, Felix!"

He didn't respond, and she lifted her staff off the ground.

"I won't let you do it, Felix!" she screamed, and swung again. "I am the guardian of the Mercury Lighthouse!"

I am the guardian. And I failed you. I failed you all.

The angry snowflakes swirled around the lighthouse in her memory. She brushed the mist from her eyes and brought more water crashing down. The air around the ship grew grey and foreboding. She could hear Felix's black, sodden clothes squelching as he dodged her blows.

"Fight back, damn you! Damn you, Felix! Damn you! Why did you come here? Why did you ruin all our lives?"

Her words blended with the tortured screams of the ship as waves, her waves, writhed beneath it. Felix stumbled at an unexpected dip and scrambled away, weaving just out of her range. He wouldn't fight her. The coward. Bastard.

"I don't understand you, Felix!" she shouted, pausing as she gasped for breath. He stood warily an arm's length away. "It would have hurt less if you just killed us!"

He swayed as if struck, took a slow step back. _Just kill me_.

She swung again, trying to goad him into action. Swung again in the other direction. He danced and swayed with her attacks, scrambling to clear the end of the staff.

Then he ran out of room, and time, and everything.

The hatred heaving in her breast crystallized right as he felt the railing bump into his back. The look he gave her told her they both knew this was the end. Black hair lay wet across his pale skin. Even at death's door, he had nothing to say.

She felt the ice blades, ready in her hand. She gritted her teeth and flung her arm back for the kill, staring deep into the eyes she loved to watch.

The ice bit hard into the wood next to Felix's arm, chewing it to shreds. She collapsed forward, dissolving into the slick puddles of grimy seawater at her feet. Felix caught her as she fell.

"I'm...I'm sorry," she sobbed. Her whole body ached with tears. "I'm so s-s-s-..."

"Sssh," Felix whispered in her ear, rubbing a hand on her shoulder blades. "It's okay."

"Why do you do this to me?" she said, choking on the words.

"I... I don't know," Felix said. "I'm sorry that it has to be this way."

She pushed away against his chest and stared into his eyes.

"Kill me, Felix," she whispered, still breathing hard, her whole body longing for the blow. "Just kill me. Please."

His lips parted slightly as he searched her face.

"Do you understand why I had to fight you?" she asked. "I failed. I had to protect the Mercury Lighthouse, and I failed. I let it be lit."

"Yes," Felix said. "I understand." Heaving seas tossed the ship, but their eyes never once broke contact.

"I can't kill you, Felix," she said, longing for his touch, forcing herself to stand upright against the vessel's lurching. For the honor of the Clan, she would stand on her own two feet. "I can't kill you. So you have to kill me. Please."

"I'm not going to kill you, Mia," Felix said.

She swallowed, not sure whether she was angry or sad or something else entirely.

"Turn the ship around," she said. "Go back and get everybody else."

"No."

Typical.

"Why not, Felix?" Why not indeed? Why now, at the end, was he doing this, abandoning them all on the last island before Prox? He made no answer, but turned to attend to the ship.

"Is this because of revenge, Felix?" she asked, very, very quietly. He paused and stood up straight, his back very still for far too long.

Finally he turned around, and she braced herself for the worst.

"No," he said, so believably that she didn't believe him at all. "No, Mia, it's not."

"R-really?" she said, aware that he was not smirking, that no levity played around his face at all. He was perfectly serious.

"At least, I don't think it is."

She frowned.  
>"Explain yourself, Felix, right now, or I'll have to try and fight you again."<p>

"Please don't," Felix said. "I am very tired."

She gave him a warning look and finger. He rolled his eyes. The ship creaked underfoot. She'd calmed enough for the sea to return to its normal state, but it was still running a little high.

"I wanted someone to be responsible for all the hell I've lived through," he said. "That someone was Prox. But I had a dream while I was under. And I think I was wrong. I don't want to hate anyone anymore. I'm just too tired."

She blinked, unsure what to make of so much revelation.

"I... Felix..."

He sighed helplessly, staring at her. She took a step closer, and another, mesmerized by some singing impulse. Maybe now she could learn the truth.

"Felix!" She turned in shock to see Isaac, the other seven behind him, rage flying high in his eyes. Isaac motioned with his fingers, and the ground underneath their feet rippled slightly. She stumbled a bit but kept her feet, chilled by the implicit threat. Felix fell over, landing on his hands with a quiet "oof".

"Stop it, Isaac," Ivan said sharply, stepping forward and putting an arm across Isaac's chest. "He has never used Psynergy against us, so why should we do worse?"

Felix pushed himself up to his knees, and slowly regained his feet. Mia frowned. What was wrong with her? She'd still worried that Felix might hit back, even now? The impulse to move and help him up came too late.

"What do you want from me, Isaac?" Felix asked.

A flood of everything at once stopped Isaac's tongue. Finally he managed to get out one of the answers.

"The truth. I want the truth, Felix."

"About what?" Felix said.

"Everything! Who are you? Why did you leave us on Kalt?"

"Did you use the teleport stone to get here?" Felix asked.

"Yes," Isaac said.

"I didn't know you could do that," Felix muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes.

Their eyes were all fixed on him, she saw. Not in hope, not in fear, not in sadness. Just numb. Waiting for an explanation of everything. The grey clouds hung around overhead, curious about the scene below.

"Well," Felix said. "Sorry about that. Welcome aboard, I guess."  
>"Felix, explain yourself. Right now," Isaac said.<br>"No, Isaac, I will not," Felix replied crisply. "I will not explain myself. Ever."  
>Isaac opened his mouth to say something violent, but Mia shook her head and took Felix's hand. He turned to look at her. As she looked into his eyes, she saw what she'd seen when she fought him – his eyes were not full of hatred anymore. For that, she'd try this one more time.<p>

"Felix," she said. "You've put us all in so much pain. Whatever you have to say, whatever it is... it can't be worse than this."

"Really?" he said. "You think so, Mia? After what you just said, you can say that?"  
>She quailed under that question and the look he paired with it. He knew what she'd meant. She didn't want to go through with it. Something was coming that she would not want to hear.<p>

"Yes, Felix," she said anyway. "It can't be."

He stared at her for a long, long time. He looked around at all their faces, saw the agreement written across them. Sheba, Jenna, Isaac, Ivan, Garet, Kraden.

"Really?" he said. "You all feel the same way. Even you, Kraden? You think so too?"

Kraden nodded softly.

Felix closed his eyes.

"Okay," he whispered hoarsely, dropping his head and swallowing. "O-okay. You win. I'll tell you whatever you want to know."  
>She gripped his hand tighter, but his was totally limp and cold. Mia tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. It had to be this way.<p>

"Why did you try to leave us behind on the island?" Isaac asked.

"I was going to light the Mars Lighthouse alone," Felix said.

"You what?" Garet said, his head coming up. "Why?"

Felix looked him in the eyes. How he loved Garet at that moment, his crazy hair and his unshakeable good-humored self.

"I didn't want you to have to make the choice," he said. "Do you understand, Garet? Do you see? I didn't want you to have to decide."  
>"So you thought you could decide for all of us?" Isaac said. "Of all the <em>arrogant<em>, selfish-"

"What would happen if you lit the lighthouse, Isaac?" Felix asked, cutting across him. "What would happen?"

Isaac didn't answer.

"You might destroy the whole world, Isaac. Do you want to be responsible for destroying the whole world? Do you believe in the gods, Isaac? Do you think they would look kindly on you for destroying the _entire_ world?" Felix swallowed, trying to control the shaking in his voice.

"_If_ the lighthouse didn't fail, you'd unleash the full power of Mars. You've never been to Prox, but I have. I lived with those people for three years and I know what they want. Power, Isaac. Unimaginable power. You think we'll just go home and everything will be fine, everything will be the _way it used to be_? Nothing will _ever_ be the same again! The world might dissolve into utter chaos!" Isaac's eyes widened.

"That's why they built the damned things in the _first _place!" Felix shouted. "Because men couldn't control themselves. What d'you think they'd get around to realizing eventually? That it was all your fault!"  
>He took a breath.<p>

"And what about Vale!?" he roared. "D'you think they'd understand all of this if we explained it to them? You know how outsiders feel about Psynergy, Isaac! You've traveled as much as I have! If they knew what we knew about the lighthouses, if they knew the risk we were taking they'd have _killed_ us!"

Felix sucked in a breath and shut his eyes tight, covering over the storm in his heart.  
>"I...I didn't want you to bear that... that weight," he said quietly. "I've made nothing but mistakes my whole life. Lighting Mars would just be one more. I stole the stars, Isaac. I wanted to do this myself. I wanted it all to be my fault. So you could go home, like you wanted to." He dropped his gaze back down to his feet, and fell silent.<p>

Mia stopped breathing as it all finally made perfect sense.

A whole secret history flashed before her wide, unblinking eyes.

Half-completed sentences found words. Bitter glances spoke volumes.

She squeezed his hand even harder, hoping it would be a line keeping her attached to the earth. He still wouldn't respond. _I...was all wrong. _

"But why didn't you just skip lighting it completely? Just go get your parents and come back to us?" Isaac said.

"Because Jupiter and Mercury have already been lit," Piers said.

"Correct," Kraden said. "If we did nothing at all, the world would freeze over."

They all stayed silent, unsure what to say or do. The ship rocked. Mia breathed, lighter and lighter. She'd been wrong. Oh, so wrong. They'd all been so wrong about him.

"You tried to keep us all at a distance, didn't you," Kraden said. "With Acheron and all that business. So we wouldn't find out."  
>"Not really," Felix said. "I hate Prox. I just didn't want any of you to be responsible for any of this."<p>

Jenna flew across the short divide and buried her face in Felix's chest, wrapping him in an enormous hug.

Felix choked. He pushed Jenna away, pulling his hand out of Mia's, and stumbled at a run away from them. There was a little click as the cabin door opened and another as it closed.

The eight of them were left to look at one another.

"I understand," Piers said.  
>Garet's eyes said that he disagreed.<p>

"He thought of it all," Kraden said admiringly. "He thought of everything."  
>They turned to him. "Please tell us what you're talking about," Isaac said.<p>

"You swore an oath," Kraden said simply. "Felix believes that oaths should never be broken."  
>Isaac sighed. All the things he'd done for them in secret... Mia let a small noise escape her throat.<p>

"So you understand, Mia," Kraden said, looking sidewise at her.

Isaac and Garet turned to her.

"What? What is it?"

"Felix... he..." she said, trying to figure out where to start. "He tried to hide all of this from us." What was truly astonishing was how close he'd come to getting away with it.

"What?" Isaac said flatly. She sighed and closed her eyes. Why did he have to be so angry?  
>"Isaac, please, just listen," she whispered.<p>

"No, honestly," he said, looking at her with the sincere eyes she remembered. "I don't understand what's happening. Please explain it to me, Mia."

She took a deep breath.

"First we thought Felix was going crazy. Then it turned out he wanted revenge on Prox and that's why he had the sword. Remember?"  
>"Right," Isaac said.<br>"Now it turns out he did still want that, but he was also trying to push us away, so that he could do all the dirty work himself. He didn't want us to be responsible for breaking our promise to guard the lighthouses."

They were still silent. She explored, in her mind, the depth of his understanding.

"He _understands_," she said. "He sees what we really are. We are just ... just pieces on the playing board. We are... hold on...I'm trying to get this right."

She saw. She really saw it. Felix had climbed a ladder and looked out, and he had seen, as through a tiny window, the whole vast drama of their little lives. The scope of the history that had come before and the history that would come after. The pent-up anger and ambition of Prox, safely frozen for centuries in ice that had begun to thaw. The titanic struggle of nations and peoples and gods, and the strange capricious hand that had chosen the nine of them to unchain the future. The way the gods, for some reason, could not be touched. Only appeased. She would never look at him the same way again.

"He saw the temples of the gods, and all the countries we've been to, and the people who lived there... and he _understood_ them," she said, trying another stab at it. "Isaac, don't you see? Do you see? Think of how much we are responsible for. Think of how different things will be when Psynergy is unleashed. Think of what you were asking Kraden about the gods this morning. Whether they care about us, and whether we're doing the right thing. Felix tried to keep us all from thinking about it. He didn't want us to have to see. To really see it all. The power we have in our hands right now, and the... the size of the choice we have to make."

"I...I...I'll be damned," Isaac said, shaking his head slowly. "I – that's – I can't decide if that's the most brilliant or the most utterly _idiotic_ thing I've ever heard."

"So the plan was that he would die in our place. Die hated by all of us, so that we could go back to Vale and live in peace. We'd have no regrets. We'd never wonder if we'd made a mistake," Kraden said.

"No," Mia said, swallowing a knot in her throat. "We'd just be confused and heartbroken instead, always wondering what had happened to him and why he'd done such terrible things." Things he had made them think were terrible.

"He thought-" Isaac's eyes filled with tears and his voice sank to a rough whisper. "He thought I _wanted_ to hate him? He thought that would make me feel better?" He turned to Kraden, trying to control his trembling lip. "You _knew _about this, and you didn't tell me?"

"Felix doesn't believe in the gods, Isaac," Kraden said defensively. "At least, he didn't. What hope could he offer you? He had none for himself!"

"You could have told us!" Garet said. "We could have helped you, somehow. Helped him."

"I wanted to do it myself," Kraden said, "but I'm too old and too weak. That was the whole point," he said, and sighed. "If you knew, it would have defeated the whole purpose."

"You still should have told us, Kraden," Isaac said. Jenna sighed and dropped her face in her hands.

"I...i..." Kraden choked. "I was a fool. I made him promise to let me come with him. I wanted to take the Star from him somehow and do it myself, and let him go. I should have known it would never work. Not with him."

They were silent.

"Please go find him," Kraden said. "Please tell him that you understand, because he still does not."


	22. Catharsis

Catharsis

_Working hard for the benefit of others is quite noble. That's what Mia always said...  
>- Alex<em>

_What do you say, Felix?_  
><em>- Sheba<em>

_He's got a fire in him.  
>- Jenna<em>

Felix sat at the table in the cabin, with one arm pulling Sheba close to his heart. He looked right through them as they filed in one by one.

She fought hard to still the leaping of her heart. So much had been explained, so much forgiven. So much better than it had ever seemed possible. But Felix still stared into the broken heart of some secret tragedy. Not one of them knew what to say.

"Felix," Jenna said. "Why couldn't you have told us any of this? Why couldn't you have told me any of this?"  
>"I wanted you to go home, Jenna," Felix said, his voice utterly broken. "Don't you understand? I wanted Isaac to take you back to Vale, and Sheba too."<p>

"Why can't we all still go home now, Felix?" she asked gently. "It'll all work out...won't it?"

"Will it?" Felix asked. "I don't know. I don't know."

Isaac drew a chair out from the table across from Felix, and sat down. Garet followed suit. Piers leaned against the wall, arms folded, studying the scene. Jenna ruffled Felix's hair.  
>"Your hair is a mess, Felix," she said with a half-laugh. "You took the braid out."<br>"It was stiff as a board," Felix said, smiling slightly. "Full of seawater and gods know what else."

She pulled a chair up behind him and sat, pulling the strands together in silence.

"Well, we're all together again," Garet said. "That's good."

Felix burst out laughing. They all jumped. His laughter was clean and sincere, as rich and sad as golden leaves in the fall. He laughed until he started to cry, and kept laughing as the tears fell from his eyes.

"Felix," Mia said, "Felix, no, no." She moved toward him.

"It's all over," he said, voice strained through tears barely held back. "It doesn't matter anymore. I tried, I really did. And I couldn't do it."

"Felix, no," she whispered, gripping him tight and feeling him quiver beneath her. Her mind still reeled with the weight of it all.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry all of this happened."

"It's not your fault," she said. "It's not."

"Do you understand?" he asked her, and then looked at all of them in turn. "Do you really understand it?"

They were silent.

"Maybe not," she said. "I don't understand it as much as you do, Felix." She wanted to tell him it didn't matter, but couldn't find the words just yet.

He nodded softly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Felix," Isaac said quietly. Felix turned his head to look, trying to rein in his sobs.

"There's one thing I still don't understand. Why wouldn't you help me fight on the Venus aerie?"

Mia frowned, trying to give him the "not now" look, but Felix put his palm out, open on the table. Sheba pulled out of the way, then dropped her head back onto his shoulder.

"Prox is m-my home too, Isaac," he said. "I didn't know what to do. I thought y-you could fend for yourself, and if I turned on Saturos and Menardi they'd have hurt Sheba. I made the wrong decision, but I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

His fingers lay half-curled up in the center of the table, the bones atop his palm pressed into the wood. Isaac reached out and placed his hand in the nest.

"No, Felix. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't understand."  
>"It's okay," Felix said, and gripped tight.<p>

After a minute Mia pulled herself away from Felix.

"Felix," she said, sniffling. "You idiot. You heroic, noble, damned idiot. All we ever wanted from you was a little bit of hope."  
>"I don't have any to give you," he said.<p>

"You were going to do it," she said. "You must have had some hope."

Felix swallowed and looked into her eyes. His were red and wet.  
>"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, maybe it will all work out."<br>"Felix," she said, trying to smile, "stop lying to me." At the same time she shivered at the steadiness of the hand that had made such a terrible gamble. No way to win, and he'd rolled the dice anyway.

His hopefulness melted away while she meditated. She smiled.  
>"It <em>will <em>work out," she said. "I just know it, Felix."  
>"I thought if I could keep you all out of this, the gods might forgive me for what I had to do," Felix said. "Now I don't know."<br>"They wouldn't do that to us, Felix," she said. "Have a little faith. It will work out. It'll be fine. I promise."  
>"Promise?" Felix asked, raising an eyebrow and offering half a sarcastic smirk.<br>"I promise," she said soberly. He nodded, trying to buy it.

Piers pushed himself off the wall.

"I'll steer," he said. "Let's fly. Let's get this over with."

They all nodded, fired to action by his energy.

_Have a little faith, Felix, _she thought, turning back to look at him again. _I just know it'll all work out. _  
><em>Have faith. And then give some to me. <em>

* * *

><p>The flight stretched out into a single endless second of tense anticipation. Every cycle of the wings' swoosh increased the pace of Mia's heartbeat.<p>

She walked back into the cabin, where everyone had fallen asleep. Everyone save Felix.

She sat at the table across from him, spoon clinking on the rim of the bowl as she set it down and pushed it at him.

"Eat."

He did so. She'd whipped up some broth quickly out of whatever was laying around in the kitchen. Not much, but he needed anything he could get. She knew now just how underfed he'd been. Not a surprise with all that had been on his mind.

The spoon clattered into the empty bowl and she looked up into his soft brown eyes. He tried to give her a little smile, just in greeting.

"Thanks," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. "That was really good."

"Why don't I know who you are at all?" she asked him. "Why was I so wrong about you?"

"It's all right, Mia," Felix said, his eyes crinkling up. "I knew Alex too."

"What does that mean?" she asked, breathless. Felix pushed the bowl to one side and leaned forward.  
>"You want to know why he did what he did. That's what you really wanted to know, Mia. Isn't it."<br>She nodded, slowly. Thoughtfully.

"Yeah... yeah, I guess so. Yeah, you're right."

Felix nodded.

"You asked _me_," he said. "But I can't tell you."  
>"He met me in Mercury Lighthouse," she said quietly. "He tried to show me the truth, that it made me more powerful. I didn't want to listen back then."<p>

She sat up straighter.  
>"How did you know, Felix?" she said. "Have you known this all along?"<p>

"I don't know what happened in Imil, but he hasn't forgotten you," Felix said. "I heard your name dozens of times before I met you, so it only makes sense that you'd be wondering about him. You're the closest thing to a conscience he has these days."  
>"Really?" she asked. Funny now, how those words that would once have been of consuming importance didn't really matter to her anymore.<p>

"Really," he said, sitting back. Sheba stirred on the floor, in her bundle of blankets, but did not wake.

"My father died right before he left Imil," she muttered. "He wasn't there when I needed him the most. He was so brilliant, and so quick, and I depended on him. I taught him everything I knew, and he took it and left."

"I'm sorry," Felix said. She looked into his eyes and he was indeed sorry. She nodded, a quick jerk of the head.  
>"It's okay," she said.<p>

"You should feel sorry for him," he said. "He's more lost than any of us."  
>"I don't know what I feel about him," she said. "It doesn't matter as much as it used to. I don't think I ever really knew him."<br>"Maybe not," Felix said.

They heard the slowly rising howl of the wind outside the ship, the ocean's comforting murmur far below and inaudible now. Soon. Soon enough, to Prox, to the north, to the end.

"I was so sad for so long," Mia said. "I didn't deserve to be a healer. I didn't deserve to be anything. I failed my people. I let the lighthouse be lit. It helped so much to be chasing you. It made so much sense." She sighed. "Now nothing makes sense anymore, Felix."

"Are you still sad?" he asked.

"I, well... no... I don't know," she said. "I'm not sure."

He made a little shrug.  
>"That's an improvement."<p>

"I already broke my oath, too, Felix," she said. "You're not the only one."  
>"It wasn't your fault, though," Felix said. "You didn't do anything."<br>"Exactly," she said, smiling so he wouldn't be hurt. "I did nothing. You should have taken me with you."  
>"I didn't want you there in Prox, Mia," Felix said.<br>"That's why you should have taken me with you," she said. "So I could keep you from doing anything stupid."  
>He smiled.<br>"Yeah, you're probably right."  
>"I trusted Isaac earlier, and now I trust you," she said quietly. "I'd do anything at all if you said it was the right thing to do, Felix." Inwardly some part of her laughed at how much things had changed in so little time. "I just wanted you to tell me there was a right thing to do."<br>"I didn't know," Felix said. "I still don't know."  
>"I know that, Felix," she said. "I'm asking you to find one. I want you to believe in something. That way I can believe in it too."<p>

He sighed and stared out the window. Rags of cloud slid by at speeds she'd once have considered impossible. Lately fewer and fewer things were impossible.

"I don't trust the gods, Mia," Felix finally said. "I don't, and I can't, and I'm sorry. But if I don't light the lighthouse, I know we'll all die. If I do, I only think we'll all die. How's that?"  
>Pretty terrible. How on earth had he lived with all that in his heart?<br>"I wish we could just go back to the way things were," she said, crossing her arms on the table and dropping her chin into them.

"I know," Felix said, looking down at her as she looked up at him. "That's why I left you in the dark. Because you'd have it the way it used to be. If it didn't work... you'd never know."

Pfft. Stupid head.  
>"Felix," she said. She chewed her lower lip, looking for the right words.<p>

"I don't live in Vale," she said. "Remember? I live in Imil. I can't go back there. There's too many bad memories."

"When did you decide that?" he asked.  
>"I don't know," she said. "At some point. The point is, things will be different for me whatever happens. I can't ever go back to the way things were. Whatever that even was. I don't want to leave all of you. You're my family."<br>"Okay," he said.  
>"You're part of that, Felix, whether or not you've realized it," she said. "There wouldn't be any happy ending if we left you behind. For any of us."<br>"I just don't know what else I could have done," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing, Felix," she said, as gently as she could. "You did the best you could. You really did. But we're going to do something different now. We're going to solve this problem together."

"All right," he said.

She stood up and swept around the table. The others still lay curled up in various corners of the room, catching up on the sleep they'd missed that morning and the mornings before. She pulled a chair up next to Felix's, who scooched his out of the way. A hug turned into an embrace.

"The world will not end, Felix," she whispered, feeling his lungs expand and contract through his clothes and hers. "If the world ended it would mean everything was meaningless, and everything's not meaningless, Felix. I promise. It won't end. You just have to have faith."

"I'll try, Mia," he said. He shifted his head to look down into her eyes, with that soft brown warmth she hoped would now be permanent.

"I'm so sorry I was cruel to you," he said. "I couldn't let you in. I just couldn't."

A fresh lance of pain and guilt split through her. How much pressure he must have faced – alone.

"I'm sorry I was so cruel to you," she said in return. "I didn't understand. I didn't understand at all."

"It's all right," he said, his arm around her. She blinked, squeezing out a tear or two, and chuckled.

"I swore to be nicer to you, Felix. And the first thing I did after that was try to kill you."

"Life is unpredictable like that sometimes," Felix said, and she laughed. After a second he laughed too.

"Don't be funny," she said. "I'm trying to apologize."

"I'm trying to tell you it doesn't matter," Felix said, looking at her. "What does it matter, Mia? Things are worse and better than they ever were before, at the same time. I can't do anything now but laugh about it."

She nodded.

"You know, when I first got on this ship, you terrified me," she said.

"Really?" Felix said. "I'm sorry. Why?"

"I don't know," she said. Looking at him, she wasn't sure. His shadows hid friendly eyes and a heart of at least silver. Maybe at first she just hadn't dared to shine a light into them.

"I tried so hard to figure you out," she said. "But I haven't thought about that in a while."

"What happened?" Felix asked.

"I started to like you instead, I guess," she said. "You've hurt me so much, Felix, but it's like you said."

He said nothing as she breathed, his full attention on her.

"What does it matter now?" she whispered.


	23. Great Northern

Golden Sun is the property of Camelot and Nintendo.

* * *

><p>Catharsis<br>Great Northern

_It seems you drifted here with Felix.  
>- Kraden<em>

_All right, you so-called guardian, let's see what you've got!  
>- Susa <em>

_You have endured so much, and now you want to throw your lives away?  
>- Saturos<em>

They touched down in the golden water when the sun hung somewhere between noon and dusk. Fans of liquid light sluiced out from under the bow and crashed back into the sea.

Felix craned his head to look out the window, something coming alive in his face. He stepped to the door and quietly exited. Isaac stretched and followed him out. Mia toed Garet awake.

"Hey, we're here," she said softly. "Ready?"  
>"Mmmf. Yeah. Gimme sec." He yawned and cracked his neck. Mia winced.<p>

The air bit hard, but none of them paid any attention to that. Massive chunks of grey ice, shot through with blue streaks, slid by in the dark, deep water. The labyrinth of white pillars stretched as far as their eyes could see.

"Um, I'm not sure I like this," Piers said out loud, not taking his eyes off his route.

"I'll do it," Felix offered, starting up toward him.

"Where are we?" Garet said, awed.

"The Northern Reaches," Felix said, flashing them a grin over his shoulder.

They stood in a row along the rail, hugging themselves and staying close for extra warmth. The slowly dying sun sent streaks of white-yellow fire racing across the tops of the ice columns. Mia shaded her eyes, unable to look away. So this was where Felix had hidden for those three years. Somehow such a labyrinth seemed fitting. She took a few steps closer to the bow, bringing her into reach of Felix and Piers. They slid down long avenues of black-blue water, the ice rising to hold up the sky on either side. As it slid by, she could almost reach out and touch its face.

"What do you think, Mia?" Felix asked.

"It's cold," she replied, smiling.

"Don't you love the cold?" he asked, spinning the wheel hard over and sliding narrowly around a corner. "Makes me feel alive."

Piers was making small alarmed noises in the back of his throat, which they both ignored.

"You do like it up here, don't you," she said, stepping up next to him so she could look into his eyes.

"I'd forgotten what it was like," he said, flicking her a quick glance before returning to his work. He exuded vitality, something in the bracing air and dramatic surroundings he absorbed into himself.

She smiled, and studied the road ahead.

The cannon bucked and roared and spat smoke and fire. Curtains of ice tumbled into the sea in a magnificent, slow-motion explosion. Jenna ran to the rail and looked down into the water, where a long white trail of steam and bubbles plunged into the depths.

"Drat, I wanted to keep that," she said, her words muffled by the blankets wrapped around her head.

Sheba tumbled out of the cabin in a heap, awakened by the noise. Kraden soon followed.

"The magma ball?" Isaac asked. "What for?"

"I dunno," Jenna said. "What if we needed it again?"  
>"Why would we need it?" Felix asked, amused. He rested his arms on the wheel. Clouds of ice particles rolled across the sea before them.<br>"Wellll...I was secretly hoping to blow up the Mayor of Alhafra's house," Jenna said coyly. Felix laughed heartily.  
>"I wish," he said. Sheba stumbled over and gave him a good morning hug, arms wrapped around his waist. He squeezed around her shoulders.<p>

"That's a long, long story," he said in response to their expressions, still smirking. "It'll have to wait."

Across the deck, Piers stretched his arms high. "That's my ship," he said expansively, as the last of the smoke cleared. "They don't build them like they used to."

Felix shot Piers a sidelong look that caused Jenna, Isaac and Mia to burst out laughing. He looked over at them and chuckled, turning so that Piers wouldn't see.

It was so good to hear him laugh.

Then the dust settled, and they all fell silent, awed. A single channel of water pierced deep into the heart of the ice-cased continent ahead. The afternoon sun glanced off the sea far in the distance, touching it with a white-gold haze. High walls of ice, rock, and snow stood tall on both sides, diminishing into the distant blur of white. Mia caught her breath. Another of the sights she'd always remember. She hadn't been expecting any more, this close to the end of it all.

"Ready?" Felix asked. When no one responded he nosed the ship forward into the channel, and it began.

A white, waving curtain of snow was falling hard at the mouth of the fjord. They saw it coming for a few miles before they flew into it. Felix squinted against the storm and flew low. Mia and Piers stayed outside, better able to bear the cold; the others were driven indoors.

"Where are you going, Felix?" Piers shouted over the wind of their travel.

"I'll beach the ship right near Prox!" he roared back. "That way we can't get lost in this!"

"What?" Piers shouted. Felix didn't hear him, or pretended not to.

On the ground ahead lights and the dim outlines of dark buildings gradually became visible, surrounded by a thin copse of trees. Mia felt a shiver run down her spine. Felix brought the ship gracefully to the right and nodded to Piers. Together they carefully dropped it in a deep, pristine drift of snow. The wings beat white flumes of powder to each side, nestling the ship even deeper. The snow crunched beneath them as it compacted, and then suddenly all was silent, the wings folded at the great dragon's sides, and there was no noise save the hush of driving snow.

"And why did we do that?" Piers said, brushing thick flakes off his head.

"It's not going anywhere this way," Felix said. "They don't have eight adepts left to steal it, and the tide won't suck it out to sea."

"If my father had lived to see his son sail overland, I shudder to think of what he would have said," Piers remarked, slapping snow off his hands and sleeves. "Ah well. Something new every day with this ship. Now what?"

"Now back inside for our council of war," Felix said, and suited the action to the letter.

* * *

><p>Gathered around the table, the eight of them studied him. Suddenly he was more than just their friend and protector. Felix was the only one who really knew what they were getting into. The warm golden glow of the cabin lights seemed barely to protect against the dark and frosty world outside. She shivered.<p>

"Well, this is it, everyone," he said into the expectant silence. "Bring all the warm clothes you have, and we'll get anything else in Prox."

Mia ran through a mental inventory. Her outer fur coat should be sufficient. Fortunately she came from a place about as cold as this. She'd have to make sure Sheba had enough to wear.

"Isaac," Felix said uncomfortably. She looked up. "You may...want to tuck in your scarf."

"Why?" Isaac asked.

"The Proxians are a proud people," Felix said. "They owe a debt to Saturos and Menardi."

He waited until the full implications sank in.

"It would be best for us not to make more trouble than we must," he said. "Seeing as how we will probably need to fight for the Mars Star."

Isaac had nothing to say.

"That's it," Felix said, with one final glance around. "Pack everything you need and meet back here."

They all traded glances, reading the same unknown there. What a wild and dangerous world they were stepping into. Mia sighed and stood up. Very well. It was time to go.

The snow and heavy clouds overhead made the world dim and uncertain. What wasn't white was a dull grey.

Felix swung over the side. Suddenly his heavy, layered style of dress made much more sense than previously, Mia realized.

He held his grip on the rail and came to a full stop before kicking away, dropping the foot or so to the ground some distance from the ship. His boots crunched through the surface and he sat down hard, catching himself with arms flung wide across the crust.

"All right," he said. "It's crusted over. If we walk carefully we should be okay. Light people first."

Hard flurries obscured him from view, then gusted past. Sheba climbed over and he grabbed her waist, carefully setting her down on the snow. She picked her way out from the side of the ship. Jenna followed, and stood as close to Sheba as possible. Isaac skated out, scarf invisible under a thick hood, and Kraden tested it and found he could stand; Mia took her turn and walked out, gliding gracefully to where her friends stood. Turning back to look at the ship, she realized how forlorn and lonely it seemed. The cabin lights burned through the portholes, but the bulk of the ship stood as a dark, half-buried silhouette against the smudged horizon.

So many hours spent on this ship, and now at the end they had to leave it behind. She felt a sudden urge to walk over and pat it, but it was too late. The snow near the ship was all churned up and she didn't want anyone to have to dig her out if she fell through. So she gave it a tiny farewell wave instead, from hip level so no one would see.

The cabin lights went dark. A few minutes later a wavering light slowly filled the glass, and then the door opened and Garet and Piers stepped out, Garet's fist clenched in a bright orange flame.

Piers stepped overboard and joined them, shutting the flap on his orb, safely tucked in a shoulder bag. That left Garet, who stayed on the planks of the deck. After a second of silence, the snow trying to drown all of them and piling up on her lashes, Garet toasted the snow beneath the ship with blinding sheets of flame. A cloud of steam went up, which Piers froze. Garet dropped heavily onto the ice plates with a snapping crash, and waded over to them. He looked comical with everything below his thighs disappearing into an unknown depth.

"I'm fat, okay," he puffed, amusement and exertion written in red on his face.  
>"It gets firmer in just a bit, Garet," Felix said. "This way."<p>

They fell into single file, spaced apart a little to distribute the weight, and followed Felix inland. The lights of Prox were just barely visible a few hundred yards away, and once Mia saw them she focused on them instead of Felix's feet. Behind her Garet slowly emerged as the ground rose, some primeval beast shrugging off a white sea. She smiled to herself.

* * *

><p>Prox felt strange, somehow. Dark wooden huts nestled close for shelter, much like Imil. She should have felt at home, and in a way she did, but one look at the inhabitants destroyed the illusion. Scowls and scales, blue-green and red, distinguished the Proxians from everybody else. And they stared at Felix, who wore no hat or hood. She couldn't decide if this were a hostile homecoming or a friendly invasion. Little colored pennants whipped back and forth in the wind driving the snow.<p>

While they huddled uncertainly in the entrance, a tall lane of cleared snow, Felix set off, a dog certain of his trail. They followed, with no better plan. The stares that followed them were curious... and fearful.

He threw the door open of a building larger than the rest.

"Puelle!" he shouted. "I'm back!"

"Are you looking for your parents, Felix?" someone asked. "They're not here. They're in your house across the way."

He nodded and turned. As she gave way, she saw something hard and silent in his face, and she prayed silently that nothing would happen.  
>Isaac grabbed his shoulder, and he turned back.<p>

"Felix, what's the matter?" he said.

"Prox's sentries would have seen us coming in," he said, eyes flashing with worry. "My parents should have been here to greet us." He was tense, waiting for a fight. Hopefully they wouldn't fight. Isaac let him go and he trotted back out into the gusting snow. They followed, silent.

Mia felt a sense of wonder creeping over her. It was so like Imil, and so different. These people were so strange, their bodies adapted to the harsh, cutting cold of the Northern Wastes. How had it all begun? What history lay behind these eyes, these structures?

Felix broke into a run ahead of them, approaching a set of smaller buildings. She noticed a half-second before the others and followed. She panted as she chased after him, trying to keep up. If anything happened she'd never forgive herself. Ahead Felix took the door with his shoulder in his haste. It occurred to her that he'd probably scared the daylights out of his parents. Maybe they were napping.

She pulled up short in the doorway, watching his back.

The interior of the house was dark and freezing cold, and no one came to greet them. She felt the ghosts of this house on the back of her neck, and she shivered, keeping her eyes on Felix.

His knees buckled, but he straightened them. He dashed a hand across his eyes and then turned back to her.

"C'mon," he growled past the knot caught in his throat. She caught his arm and held tight.

They walked up the main road, the nine of them, to the far end of town. She realized with a flash of insight what these others must have been thinking of them. Felix was the lone survivor of Prox's expeditions. The sole remnant of their hopes. Now he'd returned, and brought back eight colorful strangers. How odd they looked, certainly.

Four men stood on one side of the road and four women on the other. They stared out into the darkening snow, out along the road that faded into a uniform snowy plain just beyond the limits of Prox.

Felix stepped over to the leader.

"Puelle!" he said.

"Felix!" Puelle said. "You've... you've returned."

"Where are my parents, Puelle?" Felix snarled.

The older man dropped his head.

"I.. I don't know, Felix," he said. "They disappeared from town last night. I can't find them anywhere."

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now, Puelle," Felix said. She tugged on his sleeve. No. He looked so old, and so tired.

"Felix, I never wanted your family up here," Puelle said. "Saturos and I disagreed over many things, and that was one of them."  
>"Yeah," Felix said, the fight struck out of him by something. "Yeah, someone told me that in a dream."<p>

She frowned, but the comment seemed to pass unnoticed. She resolved to ask him about it later. Something in his attitude to this place had certainly changed.

"I ordered them to be released when you got here, but none of us have seen them since yesterday," Puelle said. "I don't know where they went, really. I'm sorry."

Felix didn't really seem to be listening. Mia frowned.

"Can you help us, Felix?" one of the girls burst in.

He turned to look at her.  
>"Agatio and Karst have been gone for - for days," she said, her voice trailing off as he looked at her without recognition. "Please help us."<p>

"No one's left in the town but the old and the young," Puelle said softly. "I understand your anger, Felix, but we are desperate."

Felix stared north, out into the heart of the storm.  
>"We can't go now," he said shortly. "We wouldn't stand a chance overland, in the dark in a storm."<p>

"I understand," Puelle said. "Stay the night then. But go as soon as you can. Please."  
>"You're our only hope, Felix," someone else said. She expected Felix to blow up, but he didn't, just quietly turned back and walked to town.<p>

The inn was the large building they'd entered first. Not really an inn, since it was Puelle's house. But it would be where they slept. They waited for Felix to say something.

"All right," Felix said. "We'll stay the night here and then leave early tomorrow morning for the lighthouse."

* * *

><p>They settled down into the little space for that one night, that last night. Garet and Ivan broke out the playing cards again, and played cards straight through the evening and into the night. When dinner came, they ate while they played.<p>

Before the sun went down completely, Felix came to her.

"I'm going to get some things we'll need for tomorrow, if you want to come."

Mia walked with him.

Flakes drifted loosely from the sky, deceptively quiet and peaceful. A few little kids were working on an igloo by Felix's parents' house. They weren't interested in help, but they'd made it awfully big. She peeked her head inside, impressed by their work.

Inside the house he opened the closet doors and cleaned them out, taking as much warm clothing as he could carry. She held out her arms flat and got a big pile of musty-smelling sweaters, scarves, coats, hats, and socks for her trouble.

They carried it back as quickly as they could in the snow still falling, laughing a little bit, breathlessly.

She pulled him aside when they got back to the inn and deposited it all somewhere out of the way.  
>"Are you angry, Felix?" she asked.<br>He slumped down, and she saw again how tired he was.  
>"I don't know," he said, looking deep into her eyes. "I don't know."<br>She saw the depth of his uncertainty and didn't push farther. She understood.  
>"Pray to your goddess that my parents are alive and well," he said, troubled. She nodded, and prayed.<p>

* * *

><p>The sun set the way she remembered from Imil. In the dead of winter when the snow fell it just got greyer and dimmer until suddenly you couldn't see the nose on your face anymore. She stared out the window, her nose pressed against the glass, Sheba smudging it right next to her. They watched the flakes dance their last dance. Their breath fogged up the glass, and they had to keep pulling away and rubbing it clear with their sleeves, smiling together.<p>

"Of course the Venus Lighthouse collapsed!" Felix said assertively, and she pricked her ears up without looking away. "The Star knew where it needed to be. In the earth. I should have seen that coming."  
>"The lighthouse was probably built by the Jupiter clan then," Isaac said. "They're the ones who like the air."<p>

"Aha!" Kraden said. "Evidence of a power play. The Venus clan must have sabotaged the work somehow, so they'd get their star back."  
>"We have our moments," Felix said. Isaac chuckled.<p>

She smiled to herself and rubbed the glass with her sleeve for the millionth time.

That night was the shortest Mia had ever known. After the sun had set and the world outside slowly faded into a deeper blue and then into black, the hours blended into one another without seams.

They sat in a circle, after they'd had something to eat, and watched the fire crackle in the hearth. Every time silence was permitted to fall, Mia felt the weight of tomorrow crowding into the room with them again. She could not bear it, and so she talked. The others could not bear it either, for they talked, they all talked of everything and anything, all the little moments they had forgotten before now but which ought not to be forgotten completely in the case that they should...should... not come back.

She would not think of that now. She swallowed.

"What was it like, living here?" Garet asked.

"Well - it was cold," Felix said humorously. "It was hard, and it was tough. But I guess it was all right. I had a couple friends."

He stared into the flames.

"Puelle was always good to me. I guess – looking back, I guess the warriors pushed everyone around. Saturos and Menardi ran the place while they were here."

He smirked.

"Heh. I remember one time I helped this kid with a prank. Agatio's always been a bully, and he really made life harder than it had to be for a lot of us. So one day when a snowstorm had shut us all in we climbed up on his chimney with a big pile of manure."

"No," Mia said. "You didn't." Felix's eyes glittered with mischief and he grinned.

"Yeah, we did." He stifled a burst of laughter. "We... we just wanted to stink up his house for a while. But... it turned out he was cooking ...soup that day."

"No," Mia said. Felix nodded helplessly, choking on the memory. Isaac and Garet began to chuckle.

"In a big pot hung over the fire. Right under the chimney," Felix said. Sheba giggled and covered her mouth. Mia couldn't decide whether to be amused or horrified.

"It was a lot of poop," Felix said, managing to hold a straight face for a good second before exploding with laughter. Garet roared.

"That explains why he hates you so much," Piers said, grinning. Felix shook his head.

"He hates everybody," he said. "We hid in Puelle's attic for days. When Agatio finally got his door open he was so mad I thought he would light himself on fire. But no one ever told him who it was and I don't think he found out."

"Heh heh, that's hilarious," Ivan said, wiping his eyes. "I didn't think you had that in you."

"Neither did I until I did it," Felix said. "I wonder what happened to that kid." They all fell silent, and looked back into the fire.

Puelle entered, flapping snow from his arms and chest. He was a big, jolly green man and Mia suddenly decided she really liked him. There was a red twinkle in his eyes one couldn't hate.

He sat down with a groan by the fire, and sighed appreciatively. For a moment no one knew what to say.

"So, Puelle..." Kraden said. "You're the one who started it all."

"I am, I suppose," Puelle said. "Amazing how far it has come, isn't it."

Without his sending Saturos and Menardi originally, none of them would have been there. Mia stared deep into the flames, meditating. How strange and fickle Fate was.

"You're a brave man to wear that scarf in this town, Isaac," Puelle said.

Isaac started up and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"We have agreed to absolve you your guilt," Puelle said quietly. "Many wrongs have been done in the course of this endeavor, some in Prox's name. And now that we must ask you for help, it seems better to forget what has passed."

"Thank you," Isaac managed to say.

They sat in silence again, a closer and a friendlier one, until Kraden spoke.

"How long have you known, Puelle?" he said.

"For a long, long time," Puelle said, staring at the glowing embers in the hearth. "We knew even before the lighthouses had been finished. We knew."

So Felix was right, at least that much. Mia looked at him, but he was studying Puelle impassively.

"Mars Adepts are always getting into fights," Puelle said. "And I am certain we provoked the punishment the world laid upon us. I have been criticized often for saying that." He fell briefly silent. "But we did not deserve to be extinguished. We did not deserve a slow and total death. And I agree with those who have said that often."

She thought again of the little rough huts and the snow-coated street outside and realized how hard they had had to fight to keep this little space for themselves.

Felix had not taken his eyes away from Puelle once. Without excusing himself, he got up and left the little circle near the fire, disappearing into the shadows around. Puelle cleared his throat.

"If you succeed," he said, "we will all owe you our lives. There is little that can be said of that." He shifted himself and stood, walking around to the back of his chair to face them one last time.

"Good luck," he said. "You will need it. And may the gods go with you." And he left.

The others turned to look at each other, and Mia got up and faded into the shadows as quickly and quietly as possible. As Isaac dropped another log into the complaining fire, she followed Puelle.

"We have much to say to one another, Felix," Puelle said in a low voice. She stopped in the hallway, and stopped breathing.

"Yes," Felix said.

"When you come back from the lighthouses, I will offer you satisfaction myself," Puelle said. "According to our custom."

"_When_ we come back, Puelle?" Felix said quietly.

Puelle said nothing.

"Did you understand nothing of what you asked me to do, three years ago?" Felix asked. Puelle was silent.

Felix sighed.

"I don't want it, Puelle. There are many things I wanted to say to you. I have wanted to kill you for a long, long time. I don't want it any more. You are not my enemy."

"Who is your enemy?" Puelle said.

"I don't know anymore," Felix said. "Fate, maybe. The way things happen."

They were silent.

"You have grown, Felix," Puelle said quietly. "You have grown since you were last here."

After a second she heard him stirring.

"Do not give up hope," Puelle said. "You are too young to die that kind of death. There is a force in this world which will kill your spirit and leave you your body. Better by far to lose your body than your spirit."

"Better still to keep them both," Felix muttered. Puelle chuckled.

"Of course, but we are warriors, Felix. We know that death comes to all men."

"Puelle-" Felix said, and she heard Puelle check his movement out of the building.

"Thank you," he said.

"Your parents are alive, Felix," Puelle said. "I know it. We will find them." And he was gone.

She could still feel Felix's presence in the dark, but she did not move any closer to him. She went back to the fire.

"It's too bad you never made it to Lemuria," Piers was saying as she came in. She didn't sit down.

"Y'know, I'd forgotten all about that," Isaac said.

"You probably wouldn't have done it anyway," Piers said. "Not in that tub we gave Babi."

"What?" Kraden said. "What do you mean, tub? What do you mean, gave?"

"We put a leaky old ship no one wanted on the end of the dock," Piers said, grinning childishly, "and let him think he stole it."

Kraden said nothing, looking like he'd eaten something sour, and Piers roared, slapping his knees. Isaac and Garet joined in.

"It leaned so hard to the left," Isaac said, chuckling. Piers, just about to recover, threw his head back in a second paroxysm of laughter.

As the noise died down Ivan stood and stretched.

"I'm off," he announced. "See you in the morning." He reached down and gripped Sheba's shoulder, shaking her awake, and they left together, the goodnights of the others ringing after them.

"What ever happened to that ship?" Kraden asked.

"I think Alex stole it after we went to Contigo," Isaac said. "I accidentally left the orb in it."

"Whatever happened to him, I wonder?" Garet asked softly.

* * *

><p>Felix stepped out into the porch and gently pulled the door to behind him. He folded his arms and stared to his left, up the dark street. Imagination pierced much farther into the veil of velvet night and white flakes, to where the red tower stood at the last end of the world.<p>

One way, one way or another, they had come to the final page. The next day would decide many fates, and their nine not least among them. Felix didn't know what to think anymore or what to do. The deed had to be done, and perhaps the gods would look down with mercy from wherever it was they looked down.

Felix remembered the streets the best. In his mind were burned the sun-kissed walls of buildings half the world over. His feet still remembered the ache of those dusty paths.

Those had been cold and tired days then. Days when he'd just barely dragged himself in through the gates to safety as night fell. Days when shopkeepers' eyes had seemed to regard him with fear and anger, almost sensing the curse he carried with him.

But he remembered the lazy afternoon sun nodding off to sleep in Lemuria's skies. The marble columns lying about, as if tossed by giants' hands.

He remembered a fountain with a few drops of water still resting in the bottom, and their laughter as they took turns pitching their handfuls of coins and medals over one shoulder. Felix remembered his surprised delight as he cleaned out pockets full of previously useless medallions and replaced them with priceless weapons and equipment. Those things represented safety.

He remembered the warm glow clay walls took on in Madra and Alhafra at dusk. He remembered the first time, with a full moon riding high above the pool at his feet, he'd heard a werewolf howl.

He realized now, for perhaps the first time, that those had been the best days of his life.

How did meaning enter a man's life? One could only act in the present, only one day at a time, groping blindly after the next town, the next meal, the next decision. How did each of those decisions blend into a whole, a fondly remembered whole that at each individual day had been such bitter struggle? And why, in the end, did the hate and pain of the past fade into this confused, but quiet, peace?

They were going to do it. Whatever the gods thought. Whatever Vale thought. They were going to do it. And no one would know they had saved the whole world, except maybe Puelle. And in twenty-five or thirty years, even if anyone knew, they probably wouldn't be thanked for it. What was the weight, the true weight of this action they had undertaken? He had finally realized he would never know.

And what did that mean?

Felix pushed his arms deeper into the folds of his cloak, glad for the cold.  
>He realized the significance of something Mia had said to him a long time ago. They wouldn't die. They couldn't die. It wouldn't be fair. Not after all the hell they'd gone through to get this far. Felix believed in some kind of justice after all.<p>

He smiled to himself. Was that, then, faith?

The door pushed gently open behind him and Mia stood framed in it. His face creased with a small smile before he thought.

"Why do you always end up out in the dark and cold by yourself?" she said quietly, taking a step closer.

"Sometimes it's good to let the silence of the world speak to you," Felix said. "Or maybe sometimes your thoughts are clearer when you can actually hear them."

"Either way," she said, "You're still very weak. You should be staying warm and keeping up your strength."

Felix nodded.

"I'll go back in a minute."

She stepped up beside him, crossing her arms.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

Felix picked an image from the cloud buzzing irresolutely in his head.

"Do you remember the birds that sat on the steps at Venus Lighthouse?"  
>"I think so," she said. "What about them?"<p>

"Sheba told me a story about them once," he said. "She must have heard it from someone who lived in Lalivero. Have you ever heard one sing?"

"...No," she said.

"No one has," Felix said. "They never have sung. They just sit on the steps and sun themselves."

Mia looked at him curiously.

"They say the birds will sing when dawn breaks on the last day of the world," Felix said.

Mia turned her face away, and there was silence.

"Do you think this is the last night?" she asked very quietly. "The last night ever?"

"It'll take us at least two days to get up to the top," Felix said, "so no."

"You know what I mean," she said. "You know what I mean, Felix."

"...It could be," Felix said. "I don't know. I hope not. There's a lot of things I've left undone in my life."

"Are we going to make it, Felix?" she asked, piercing him with her full gaze. Looking into those eyes, he felt the tremble in his stomach even as he thought of words, and one corner of his mouth quirked.

"To the lighthouse? Yes," he said. "I never know how long it'll take to get up these things. And we may need to fight Agatio and Karst, though I certainly hope not."

Mia took one small sidestep closer to him, then another. She bumped his shoulder slightly with hers, then rocked away, a hairsbreadth distance separating them. Felix reached out to put his arm around her, and she leaned into him.

"Will we make it, Felix?" she asked again.

Blood and fire and the uncertain end of all human history slipped through Felix's mind, and gradually drained away, leaving Mia's warm and fragile body tucked close to his and the soft melody of her voice.

"...Yes," Felix said. "Yeah, we're gonna make it, kid. We're going to be just fine."

"Promise?" she said.

"I promise," Felix said.

She sighed, and they were silent.

"I love this country," Felix said eventually. "I'd forgotten how beautiful it was."

"Really?" she said.

"I love this people," he said. "Prox gave me a home and a family, in its own crude way, for three years. And I cannot help either loving them or hating them."

She smiled, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"You will not hate forever, Felix," she said into his shirt. "All wounds heal with time."

"I hope you're right," he said.

There were things he needed to say before the end. But she, breathing deeply into his ribs, beat him to it.

"You have hurt me so much, Felix," she said. "I didn't deserve this."

"I know," he said, turning to look into her face. "I tried so hard to keep you away, but nothing worked. I'm so sorry."

"Felix, it wouldn't have worked," she said gently.

"I had to try," he whispered. "I had to."

"I know," she said. "I don't think you deserved any of this either."

"I hope not," Felix said. "But I have an argument with the gods to finish. And maybe they put all this on me, maybe they made me the one, because I did deserve it, for starting the whole thing in the first place."

"No," she said firmly. "No, I don't believe that. All my life I have heard that the gods were good. We cannot live in a universe where they are not, Felix. How can we be greater than the gods? They must be good."

"I love you," he said, and kissed her.

When he opened his eyes again she looked deeply into them.

"All those things you've seen," she whispered. "They don't matter to me, Felix. It doesn't matter if we can't understand it. We are together now. We will figure it out."

And something in Felix whispered that she spoke the truth. She knew, as she had known before, that it would be all right. Maybe she was right after all. They would live. The end was not here, not yet. They had more story left to tell than this. He pulled her close and took a breath.

"Let's go back in," he said. "It's cold out here."

* * *

><p>"Everything okay?" Isaac asked. Felix nodded, and Jenna smiled slyly at something in his face.<p>

He flopped down into a chair by the fire, sighing with pleasure as the fabric caught his bones. Mia sat near him.

The fire popped and snapped. There was a faint smell of sausage and cheese from somewhere, and the must of drying winter clothes. Mia's cold cheeks burned as the heat touched them.

"What are we gonna do, Felix?" Garet asked. Felix looked at him without stirring.

"We were talking about this before you came in," Isaac said.

"Let me tell you a story," Felix said, staring into the fire. "On an island in the Eastern Sea called Izumo there is a man named Susa. Susa loved a woman named Kushinada, loved her with all his heart."

As his voice rose and fell the dancing flames began to hypnotize her, and she saw what he spoke of as if in a dream.

"The village of Izumo lies under a great mountain, and in that mountain lived a dragon. To keep the monster appeased the villagers would sacrifice a girl to it every so often. And the time for the sacrifice had come again. Kushinada was chosen."

"Did this actually happen?" she heard Isaac murmur to Jenna, who nodded and shushed him with her hand on his arm.

"We happened to be in the mountain," Felix said, making it sound accidental, "trying to save Kushinada." She smiled.

"We fought it," Felix said. "We fought the dragon, all of us. And Susa delivered the killing blow with the only sword that could destroy it."

He paused.

"Susa was regarded as a madman by the villagers," he said. "It wasn't until the dragon had died that anyone recognized his courage. But they didn't realize it was the same thing, before and after. He was just as sane and just as courageous before... only he dared to go against what everyone else was too scared to change. He dared to shake the world a little."

A spark popped.

"I don't know," Felix said. "Maybe the gods will look on us better for our defiance of them. Maybe we will be forgiven. If we didn't defy gods who asked us to betray all we loved, what kind of gods would they be?"


	24. Finisterre

Catharsis

Finisterre

_They look like an unreliable bunch of ragamuffins.  
>- Agatio<em>

Morning sunlight streamed through the windows. Mia awoke silently and completely and dressed herself, making sure her weapons and tools were close to hand. She felt within her for the presence of the Djinni, comforting as always. One more journey. One last journey. Then a different life could begin. She would live that life. She promised herself that.

In the large room upstairs the others were gathered. The ashes of last night's fire were white and cold in the hearth.

Felix straightened up from tucking a scarf tighter around Sheba's nose. She'd disappeared completely under layers of fur and fabric. Around her all the others had gathered, standing about in readiness.

"Good, you're here," he said. "Are we ready to go?"

No one spoke. They were ready.

Mia breathed a prayer to Mercury, or to anyone who might be listening. Lives were not made to be meaningless.

"Do you think the birds sang this morning, Mia?" Felix said quietly. She couldn't say anything in response, and the others were watching. She pretended not to hear.

They were not just pawns in a huge game. They were people, who loved and were loved back. They were people who tried to do their best, tried not to buckle under the weight of the world. No one had a right to ask more than that.

Felix gripped her hand firmly in his and pulled the door open on a blinding world of white.

FIN

* * *

><p>Well, this is it. I loved this story. I really tried to pour everything I could muster into it. So many times, though, we begin with the vision of a shining Greek god of flawless marble - and all we get is a rather silly crayon drawing with six fingers and no nose.<p>

Over the years I have invested many long hours in this place, hours I consciously wasted. I would call those songfics and weepy multi-chapters I read frivolous or fluffy, but who am I, the desperate and the lonely, to mock the friendly firelight I have often longed for but never understood?

Nevertheless I did not want to be a waste of your time. I wanted this story to be something. To mean something. I wanted to create something that would leave a wound. Not because I deserve it. I don't. Because these people, the living, breathing, bleeding survivors I drew up from 8-bit sprites and loved with all my shallow, selfish heart for eight years, deserved it. They deserved to have their story told, and to have it mean something. I owe something to them.

I hope this means something to you.

- Andrew Parrish


End file.
